


Unbound and Tethered

by flypaper_brain, QueenOfCarrotFlowers



Series: Unbound and Tehtered-verse [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Ben Solo, Alpha Kylo Ren, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Come Eating, Dominant Rey, F/M, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, Mating Cycles/In Heat, No Pregnancy, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Rey (Star Wars), Praise Kink, Safe to Read if You're Triggered by Pregnancy, Submissive Kylo Ren, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Virgin Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-04-23 06:55:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19145824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flypaper_brain/pseuds/flypaper_brain, https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers
Summary: Ben Solo is an Alpha who lives life on his own terms. Rey is an Omega who wants to start over. When Rey is stranded in Ben's barn after a snow storm, her impending heat challenges them both.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [juniordreamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniordreamer/gifts).



> The prompt: "Alpha Ben is happy to run his homestead in Montana all on his own. That is until Omega Rey shows up asking for a job and a place to stay."
> 
> This is for juniordreamer, author of [The Devil's Backbone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14409636) (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) among many other fics. When I saw her prompt on the Plaid Paramour list I had to grab it. First, because it's hers, and she's great, and I want to write a gift for her. Second, because I've never written ABO and it was an opportunity for me to challenge myself. 
> 
> I've played with the prompt just a bit - you'll see very quickly that the circumstances of Rey's arrival aren't _exactly_ as requested in the prompt, but I hope JD will forgive me for messing with it just a bit. 
> 
> I should also admit that I have read very little ABO, so I am depending on flypaper_brain, beta supreme, for her ABO knowledge as well as her usual assistance, which I can't live without. 
> 
> Finally, I've done some subverty things with the trope, I think it's fun and I hope you will too!
> 
> Juniordreamer, thanks for all you contribute to the fandom. This is for you and I hope you like it ❤️❤️❤️

Snow had fallen the previous day and all through the night, and when Ben woke up in the morning the world was silent and still and covered with a blanket of white. After making a pot of coffee, he let the old Saint Bernard out and stood in the doorway in his robe and slippers, inhaling deeply the cold morning air. He could smell the pine, and a hint of the frozen soil beneath the thick layer of snow. The snow muffled most of the usual scents, present even in the depths of winter, although the stuff itself carried the sharp, clean scent of ozone, brought down with it from the clouds. That scent would dissipate, but he would enjoy it while it lasted.

The dog, after a minute of worrying along the edge of the snow, thin under the edge of the roof’s overhang, gave a _whuff_ and bounded down the stairs that led from the deck to the ground. He cut a path through the thick whiteness, and headed off in the direction of the red barn that lay across the yard, close to the edge of the treeline.

Ben took a sip of hot coffee, enjoying the fruitiness of the aroma. It was a new roast - new to him, at least - that Poe had brought up in his last shipment. Poe's wife, an alpha, had been going on about it and Poe thought Ben might like it, too. He hadn’t been wrong. Ben stood, content, and smelled the air, taking pleasure in the way his breath puffed white before he shut the door against the cold, went back inside, and shuffled to the living room to eat his breakfast by the fire. 

Occasionally - very occasionally - he got a bit lonely, living by himself on his grandparents’ old homestead in the middle of nowheresville, Montana, but on days like today he was content to be alone, to be exactly who he wanted to be without having to worry about what anyone else thought, or expected, of him. Today, he would eat a good breakfast, spend the morning pleasuring himself in his bedroom, maybe take a walk in the woods after lunch if he was feeling it. He could nap in the afternoon, read a novel, eat as much or as little for dinner as he wanted to, and go to bed early or late. Time was his own and today, with the snow covering the world, he had nobody to answer to but himself.

* * *

The first indication that something was wrong was that Chewie stayed out for so long - much longer than Ben would call normal. That dog liked the snow as much as the next one, but to spend two hours out in the freezing cold was highly unusual. So at 10am Ben packed away his ropes and toys, brushed his hair, and carefully weaved it into a single braid that hung down to the middle of his back. He dressed himself in his favorite lined jeans and flannel shirt, donned his boots and his coat, and stepped out onto the deck. His plan, such as it was, was to follow the marks in the snow that led to the old barn and, Ben presumed, into the forest beyond, to see what Chewie had got up to. But he didn't make it that far… because of the scent that touched his olfactory receptors before he was halfway across the yard, a scent that stopped him in his tracks.

This was the second indication that something was wrong. Ben froze in place, slowly breathed in and out once, then took three quick sniffs. Without thinking he bared his teeth and growled - in anger, or frustration, or because of some long-buried evolutionary need - and with all the strength he had, instead of following his instinct and running towards the barn, towards _that scent_ \- which is what his body wanted him to do - he turned around and ran back to the house, slamming the door and locking it before slumping onto the floor of the hall in a sweaty, breathless mess.

It was the scent that did this to him, and he cursed his biology for the immediate and very strong reaction. He knew exactly what it had to be: an unsuppressed female omega, and she smelled _wonderful._ He’d never encountered anything quite like it. The aroma was sweet and heady, not dissimilar from the magnolia trees that used to grow in the yard of his parents’ house when he was growing up, but sweeter. It entered his brain and from there spread to every part of him, his limbs and organs and glands, all screaming for it. Even without the tingling of his own mating gland, which lay, usually forgotten, on the back of his neck, he would recognize that scent. It was ingrained deep in his bones, and he knew it as well as he knew the layout of his house, the paths around the homestead, the sound of his mother’s voice. There was a female omega out there and she was in trouble; her sweet and glorious scent had a sharp, bitter cast that reminded him of burning rubber, which said to him _pain_ , and _trauma_ , and _needs care_. 

Even without the dark undertones he’d be concerned. She was obviously in the barn. There was an office in there, with a cot and a kerosene heater, but there was no insulation, and, aside from a few granola bars he'd stashed in the desk last summer, there was no food; she’d be cold and hungry. His omega - _not yours_ , his brain scolded his body, _just **an** omega, and she needs help, get a fucking grip_ \- was in the barn and she was hurting, in need of sustenance and warmth. Ben longed to go help her at the same time that he knew that he _could not possibly go help her_. Because she was an unsuppressed omega, and he was an unsuppressed alpha, and the logical outcome of the two of them being together in the same space would lead to disaster. He’d been avoiding that disaster his entire life, and he wasn’t about to give in now.

At the moment it detected her scent, his body had responded in all the ways the textbooks had described, and although he could no longer actively smell her, the memory of her lingered and left him with a very large problem in his pants. He couldn’t do anything at all until that was taken care of, so he took a few minutes to pace the house, starting at the front door, across the living room and into the kitchen, back out through the door into the dining room, through his office, into the hallway, all the way to the end, past the bathroom and the bedrooms, and then back again to the front hall. As he paced, he thought about every horrible thing, every fear… car crashes, his house burning down, his own grisly demise at the hands of a bear. He'd come close the summer before, when he'd come face to face with a mother black bear and her cub in the woods just behind the house. It had been terrifying. Three times he made the trek, thinking of these terrible things and _not_ about the omega in the barn, and when he was done his cock was as hard as it had been at the first moment he scented her.

Ben sighed, and stepped into the bathroom. He pulled his jeans and boxers down his hips, and his fingertips barely brushed the tip of his cock before the orgasm hit him, the pleasure centered around his knot, which felt as though it had swollen to twice its usual size, and which, still sensitive from the toy he'd used earlier, was painful to the touch. The orgasm was so strong that spots danced in his eyes and he had to grab the edge of the sink to keep his balance. He’d never come like that, not even when he was a teenager, and the only thing on his mind - before, during, and after - was his… _the_ omega. He felt deep pleasure, paired with guilt that he wasn’t caring for her as he should. She should be safe and warm in his arms, her scent imprinting on his skin, mixing with his to make something new and beautiful. Instead she was out in the barn, cold and hungry, and really it was his fault for not going out to her. He should go to her.

 _Damn biology_. He would not go to her. But he might still be able to help.

Ben's cum had painted the front of his flannel button-up with streaks of milky white. He swore, and wiped his hands the best he could before ripping off the shirt and tossing it in the hamper. He tidied himself up and put on another shirt, all the time thinking about the omega in the barn, and how he could help her in such a way that wouldn’t lead to the inevitable. 

After too many minutes of contemplation, Ben finally came up with a plan that didn’t seem terrible or immediately destined to fail. After a quick trip down to the basement and a stop in the bathroom, he went to the fridge, pulled out one of the steaks he’d thawed the morning before in preparation for the snowstorm, carried it out to the deck, and waved it around his head. 

“CHEWIE!!!” He cried out into the bright, silent morning, his breath coming out in white puffs before dissolving in the sunlight. “CHEWIE! CHEWBACCA DOG!! I HAVE A MEATY TREAT FOR YOU!!” 

That got a response; thirty seconds later the enormous locomotive of a dog chugged his way through the snow around the corner of the barn and hurled himself up onto the deck. Ben tossed the steak on the clear wooden floor, several feet away from him, and Chewie went after the meat instead of jumping on him, which was a good thing because the dog reeked of magnolias and honey.

Ben had been prepared for this - if he was cold and lonely in a barn, he’d want to spend two hours snuggling a friendly dog, too. First, he pulled the suppression mask from under his arm and placed it over his face. It was an old fashioned mask; black, with narrow eyepieces and the kind of chrome detailing that was popular in the ‘50s; but it worked. The air inside the mask was musty and unpleasant, but the sweet scent disappeared immediately and he could breathe more easily. Then he switched the spray bottle he’d been holding in his left hand to his right, and while Chewie scarfed his early dinner Ben spayed the dog down with apple cider vinegar, from the top of his head to the tip of his tail. He’d used the vinegar cure the year before when Chewie had an unfortunate run-in with a skunk, and he hoped it would work on the omega’s scent, too. 

Once the steak was gone and he’d worked the sour-smelling liquid through the dog’s fur, Ben experimented by lifting the mask a crack, and put his face near his furry shoulder. All he could smell was vinegar, and he relaxed and took off the mask, then led Chewie back inside where the dog threw himself on the rug in front of the fire and immediately went to sleep, a huge, fluffy, wet, vinegar-scented mass. As the warmth of the fire heated his fur and began to evaporate the liquid, the sharp scent of vinegar permeated the room.

Ben envied the dog; he didn’t have the freedom to relax just yet. He dug around in the front closet, spent a few minutes back in the basement, made his way to the kitchen, and finally settled at the dining room table with a pen and several sheets of paper. Thirty minutes later he poked Chewie with his toe, and the dog awakened with a _huff_ , still sleepy from the warmth of the fire and his steak surprise.

“Come on, old dog,” Ben muttered, as he maneuvered the scruffy backpack around Chewie’s legs in a way that he could comfortably carry the - probably too heavy, now that he thought about it - consignment he’d put together as a gift; an offering, for his omega. _NOT YOURS_ , his brain reminded his body again, _just some random omega_. The omega in the barn.

Five minutes after that, Ben stood at the door and watched as the huge, fluffy, friendly dog loped back across the snow and around the corner of the barn. Back to _her_. The omega, who was definitely _not_ his.

* * *

Rey was snoozing on the cot in the barn’s small office when the dog came back, pushing the barn door open with its shoulder and letting itself in; she hadn’t eaten anything except snow and granola bars for three days and she was due to go into heat within the next week, so at this point snoozing was the only thing she had the strength to do. She didn’t think much time had passed since the dog had left; her phone was charging across the room and she didn’t feel like getting up to check it. There had been a voice that had called out - a man’s voice, presumably the alpha who didn’t seem to spend any time in the barn. There was just a hint of him in here, a dim memory of a delicious scent: organic and fresh, like the mountains after a rain. The dog, which had smelled more strongly of the alpha than the barn did when she’d snuggled with him this morning, had bounded out and away as though it had forgotten all about her. Typical.

The enormous dog wandered back into the office and Rey sat on the edge of the cot, running her hands through her hair in an attempt to get it to lay flat. She’d had it cut above her ears in the Fall, and it was at that awkward stage at which it took a lot of effort to keep it from sticking straight up. 

The dog had a backpack strapped precariously to its back, and stank of vinegar. That was probably good; the scent of the alpha in its fur hadn’t been enough to trigger a heat, but it had been enough to make her mating gland itch just a tad, and to render her too relaxed for her own comfort. There was just something about that scent that made her feel safe and warm, and that was a concern. She’d never felt like that about an alpha’s scent before; usually they were hot and spicy, and they agitated her, made her horny and nauseous, miserable and out of control in a way she despised. Rey hadn’t met an alpha whose scent she liked, let alone one that made her want to lie snuggling for hours, which is exactly what she’d done with that stupid sweet dog for most of the morning. She wondered what kind of effect, if any, her own scent had had on the alpha, and then cursed herself for thinking of it.

The dog had returned to its owner smelling of an unsuppressed omega nearing heat - of _her_ \- and instead of coming for her himself the alpha had sent the dog back, with something for her. A gift? This was interesting and unusual behavior for an alpha, in Rey's experience. It charmed her, and she thought it was consistent with what she could tell of him from his scent. _Which is very little_ , she reminded herself. _You’re fooling yourself. He could be fooling you_. 

The dog didn’t smell like the alpha anymore, but the bag attached to its back did. She sat up on the edge of the cot and sniffed at the bag warily - the alpha’s scent was stronger on the fabric than it had been on the dog, and she could identify more details of it; rain and ocean, cool and moist, with a hint of smoke, like a bonfire on a beach. The smoke brought her mind to worry, or maybe nervousness. Was he distressed about _her_? But there was nothing distasteful there, nothing that implied he meant her harm, or to cause her concern. Satisfied, she loosened the straps and pulled the bag off the dog. It took three steps towards the kerosene heater - set on low to conserve fuel - flumped to the ground, and started snoring.

She spared a smile for him. “Silly pup,” she murmured fondly, before opening the bag to see what was inside.

At the very top was a handwritten note, folded neatly into quarters, so that’s where she started.

“ _ **Hello there**_ ,” the note read, the handwriting very neat and careful, and attractive in a way that made Rey think of wedding invitations she'd seen on TV. “ _ **My name is Ben, and I think you’re in my barn. You are welcome to stay for as long as you would like, but as there is no food in the barn (aside from a couple of granola bars in the desk drawer, which I hope you already found)**_ ” - she had, and there was still half of one that she was saving for her next meal - “ _ **I have sent some things over with the dog. His name is Chewie, by the way. He is almost nine years old, which is very old for a Saint Bernard, so if he dies on you please don’t feel responsible.**_ ”

Rey laughed out loud. Nice handwriting, sending her food, telling jokes, smelling like the outdoors? She liked this guy already. _You’re being too generous_ , she told herself. She _really_ shouldn’t like this guy already.

“Chewie.” She said the name out loud, to see how it felt on her tongue. The dog opened one eye, gave her an unimpressed look, and went right back to sleep.

“Ben,” she said, and almost wished she hadn’t. Ben was a good name. The name Ben, now associated with his scent, had her thinking of pine tree-swept mountains, and thunderstorms, the ocean, surf on the beach, and, oddly, of _hope_. She shivered as a wave of warmth splashed in her core, and she shifted on the bed to relieve the pressure building between her legs. The movement didn’t help. _Ben_.

The “things” mentioned in the note consisted not of more granola bars, which is what she’d expected given her previous experiences with alphas attempting to provide for her, but real food, in plastic containers. Spaghetti in a meat and tomato sauce, chili thick with beans and chunks of beef, a white roll and a piece of cornbread together in a baggie, two large slices of chocolate cake, a square of yellow fabric that she guessed was a napkin, which was wrapped around a fork and a knife, and three thermoses - one full of hot coffee, one of ice water, and the third with hot water. Rey had grown up impoverished and aging out of the foster system hadn’t done her any favors; she didn’t think she’d seen so much food at the same time in her life, and she was almost too overwhelmed to cry.

“ _ **I don’t know what you like to eat but these are all the leftovers I had in the house. Crap, I hope you're not a vegetarian**._” 

Rey chuckled wetly. “I love meat,” she murmured to herself, then realized how it sounded and blushed, even though the only other creature in the room was Chewie, and he didn’t care. _Don’t think about the alpha’s knot_ , her brain scolded unhelpfully, itself distracted by her impending heat. So of course she thought about his knot, how good it would feel expanding inside her, securing her to him. She didn't really enjoy being knotted, even though she knew she was supposed to, and her body certainly appreciated it even if _she_ didn't, but if this was how he smelled… if he fed her _real food_ and chocolate cake… he was sweet and funny and thoughtful... _alpha will take care of you_.

She was getting too distracted by biology. She shook her head, shifted again, and returned her attention to the letter.

“ _ **I made the cake myself, it’s been frozen for a couple of weeks but I think it’s okay. I haven’t used the office microwave in a while but it should still work, and you can put whatever you don’t eat outside in the snow to keep it cold. Ugh, sorry, you knew that.**_ ” 

Rey found herself smiling through her tears. An alpha admitting he was being patronizing? The alphas Rey had grown up with would never do that. She lifted the letter to her nose and took a sniff. The scent calmed her even as her mating gland tingled again. She wanted to meet him. She wanted _him_. 

_It’s just biology_ , her brain chimed in. It was true that biology had controlled her body before, but it had never ruled her emotions, and she was definitely feeling something for this alpha’s obvious and gratuitous kindness towards her. Why would biology start influencing her emotions now? She was certain it wasn’t just biology, even if she was just feeling thankful.

Rey put the container of spaghetti in the tiny, ancient microwave and set the dial for three minutes before settling herself back on the cot to finish reading the letter.

“ _ **I’ll be making steak for dinner and if you would like I can send Chewie out with one for you. I would bring it myself but I think that is not a good idea. I sense that you are close to heat. I will admit that I have never had a rut and I do not intend to start now, so staying away from you is as much for my safety as it is for your own.**_ ”

An alpha who’d never had a rut, and didn’t want to? She’d never heard of such a thing, and it should have made her feel safe, but instead her heart sank, just a bit. He was right, it was not a good idea for him to bring her a steak in the barn, but he had done more for her in ten minutes than almost anyone else had done for her in years. So it wasn’t the worst idea. Then she immediately second-guessed herself and wondered if it wasn’t all an act, if he wasn’t pretending to be nice just to make her comfortable so he could take advantage of her. She’d had that happen before, although not at this level - if Ben was running a con he was putting an awful lot of effort into it - but still, it wouldn’t hurt for her to be careful.

“ _ **That said**_ ,” the letter from Ben continued, “ _ **At the bottom of this bag there is a suppression suit with a mask. It belonged to my grandmother, and I don't know your size so I don’t know if it will fit you. If it does you are welcome to put it on and come up to the house. I have a suit as well and if you come in I will wear mine, too. The barn is cold and uncomfortable and the house is warm. I would much rather have you in the house than in the barn, especially if you are going into heat soon.**_ ”

That sounded suspiciously like an order. Rey knew that omegas were supposed to welcome orders from alphas - she’d been told that enough over the course of her nineteen years, and she’d always been made to feel like there was something wrong with her when she didn’t immediately want to do as she was commanded. “ _I would much rather have you in the house than the barn”_.

“I bet you would,” she muttered, and then immediately felt uncharitable when she read the next sentence.

“ _ **If you would be more comfortable, I would very gladly cede the house to you and stay in the barn myself during the duration of your stay, however long it might be.**_ ”

The microwave dinged, and Rey wiped the new tears off her cheeks before settling down to eat the hot meal with the fork - a metal fork, solid and cool, not a plastic one - and the cloth napkin placed across her lap.

He could be telling the truth, and he could be lying. If she came to the house, would he welcome her with more food and leave for the barn if she told him to? Or would he try to grab her, pull the suit off her, force her into a heat so he could have his way with her? It didn’t seem likely, but it wasn’t entirely _un_ likely, was it? 

Rey ate, and she thought. The spaghetti was very good; even if she hadn’t been near-starving she expected she’d find it delicious, with a nice balance of seasoning, the noodles the perfect texture. By the time she was licking the remnants of the sauce from the bottom of the container she had made a decision. Taking the pen and paper Ben had included in the bag - along with a small package of baby wipes, a washcloth, a bottle of dry shampoo, and the promised suppression suit - she sat down at the office desk to write her own letter in reply.

As she considered what to write, Rey glanced back at the items lying on the cot. _Dry shampoo?_ She was crying again, and she let herself have that moment. When she was done, she dampened the washcloth with the hot water from the thermos and used it to wipe down her face. It was the first time she’d felt warm water in almost a week, and it felt good.

Ten minutes later she woke Chewie up and reattached the bag, now holding just her letter and the dirty spaghetti container.

"Let's see what he thinks of this," she muttered, as she sent the dog back out into the bright, cold day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's such a tiny detail, but I want to thank Zabeta for the line about the mid century chrome detailing of Ben's suppression mask, which she tossed at me in chat and has probably forgotten but which I will never forget.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another set of correspondence and Rey finally comes in from the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter two! I decided that flypaper_brain is doing so very much heavy advising on this around the finer details of ABO that I am giving her a co-author credit.
> 
> I've also added the "Virgin Ben Solo" tag, just to make that absolutely clear, and the "Trope Subversion/Inversion" tag as well.
> 
> There is still no smut here but we are heading in that direction! I hope you enjoy the ride.

Only 45 minutes after Ben sent Chewie out, the dog returned with the backpack strapped loosely to him so it had slipped down and was half-hanging on his right side. The bag smelled like a magnolia tree in a rainstorm - his own scent combined with hers - and his chest constricted with how wonderful it was. He hated it. _Damn biology_.

His cock was getting hard again, and he’d have to go back to the bathroom soon, but he couldn’t wait to see how the omega had replied to his letter. The sound of the backpack zipping open was loud in his ears, and there was the container that had held the spaghetti, and a folded piece of paper. The clear plastic had been licked clean, and Ben considered opening the container, which now carried remnants of the sweetness of her fingertips, to catch the scent of her saliva, but his brain interrupted and he tossed it on the ground instead. Other than those two items the bag was empty, she’d taken everything else, and his heart and cock both jumped. _You’ve pleased her_ , his body whispered, _she is pleased with you_. The omega in the barn was pleased with him. This fact made him almost unbearably happy.

 _Hush_ , his brain replied. _It’s just biology_.

But biology had consequences. He adjusted himself in his jeans, leaned against the wall, and started to read.

“ _ **Hi, Ben,**_ ” The letter began. The handwriting was cramped and messy - he’d call it a scrawl if anyone asked - but it was legible. However seeing his name, in that handwriting, did things to him, and he had to stop.

 _This is ridiculous_ , his brain said as he stepped down the hall to the bathroom. _Maybe so_ , his body replied. He fished his flannel shirt from earlier out of the hamper - no sense in waste - and held it at the ready with his left hand before he used his right to unzip and tug down his boxers and jeans. As before, he’d barely got his hand around the head of his cock before it shot a thick load of cum out and onto the shirt; the stream was so strong some of it overshot and landed on the tile floor, but he didn’t notice at first because the orgasm overwhelmed to the point where he lost a few seconds. 

When he regained awareness he was leaning against the wall, cum-covered shirt in one hand and quickly-softening cock in his other hand. His knot was sensitive, but at least it wasn’t sore this time. Going soft was a good sign; everything he’d ever read and heard indicated that an alpha in rut had virtually no refractory period, which meant a pretty much permanently stiff cock with only the knot deflating between sessions. That sounded like hell to Ben, which is just one of the reasons he’d done everything in his power to avoid it.

This omega, though. She smelled _really good_. And she ate his food. And she wrote him a note, which was waiting for him in the front hall. 

She’d called him _Ben_.

He wiped the cum off the floor, tossed the shirt back in the hamper, washed his hands, and went back to the letter, which he’d dropped on the hall floor. He made himself comfortable next to where Chewie had settled on the half of the sofa closest to the fireplace. The dog wasn’t supposed to be on the furniture, but he seemed to know that if there was a good time to take advantage of his owner, it was now. And he was right.

“ _ **Hi, Ben,**_ ” he read again. “ _ **Thanks for the food and stuff, and for being nice about me trespassing in your barn, and for not coming out to me.**_ ”

That admission upset him for some reason he didn’t quite understand. He hadn’t really wanted to go to her, except on a biological level, and even then he hadn’t considered it seriously at all, but the thought that she didn’t want him there hurt, even though he understood that to her, he was a danger. He put the letter to his face and inhaled deeply. Her sweetness, imprinted on the paper, calmed him, and he was able to continue.

_“ **To get to the relevant point: As you mentioned in your letter I am not suppressed. I ran out of suppressants a few days ago, which is just as well because I am due to have a heat within the next week. Excellent timing, I know.** ”_

Ben laughed, scurried to the bathroom to masturbate into the shirt again, resulting in another mind-blowing orgasm, cursing his biology the entire time. Once he’d cleaned up he scurried back as quickly as he could to continue reading her letter.

_**“My name is Rey.”** _

Ben had to close his eyes and deliberately, purposefully, relaxed, and soon enough he was able to turn back to the note without running to the bathroom again. _She has a name, her name is Rey._ He couldn’t tell if that was his brain or his body talking.

 _ **“I’m going to Vancouver,”**_ Rey’s note continued, _**“where I’m going to live with my friend, try starting over. I left Fargo five days ago, and the lady who picked me up outside of Billings dumped me out on the road when she figured out I wasn't kidding about not having gas money. The plan was for me to reach Vancouver in time for my friend to help me though my heat, but with the snow and stuff I don’t think that’s going to happen."**_

Billings was only nine hours from Fargo, less if you ignore the speed limit, and he was three hours from Billings on a bad day. Which meant she'd most likely been in the barn for days - cold and hungry and alone. Frightened, if her scent was true. Afraid. Ben hated the woman who dumped her for not having money, and he wondered about this friend who was waiting for her in Vancouver. Was this person a friend, or a _friend_? Was this person her mate? Surely she wouldn’t use the term _friend_ if she meant _mate_. She didn’t smell mated to him, but he wasn’t confident enough to say for certain.

Ben stood and stomped in a tight circle around the glass coffee table, pulling his braid over his shoulder and tugging at it while growling deep in his throat. He was angry at himself for not helping her sooner. He should have known; he should have smelled her days ago. But as he calmed down and his brain took back over from his body, he thought he understood why he’d only noticed her this morning, despite having spent time outside every day this week: her scent was getting stronger, which meant her heat was getting very close. Anxiety and desire spiked in him, but Ben held back from rushing back to the bathroom to get himself off again; if he wasn't careful he'd end up pushing himself into a rut, and he wasn't sure what he would do if that happened, and the thought frightened him.

 _Don’t be afraid_ , said his brain. _You know what you would do_. And he did; he'd done a version of it this morning. If he went into a rut he'd use the ropes to secure himself to the bed and maneuver the toys with his free hand until his body had had enough. He would masturbate himself through it. It would be fine.

He sat back down and took several breaths with his eyes closed, but he was impatient to finish the note. He wanted to know what Rey had to say about his offer to come to the house. She really should come to the house.

_**“I’ll get out of your hair as soon as it’s safe - I’m talking about the snow, but I’m also talking about my heat. I will need to have my heat before I can leave.”** _

**__**_Deep breaths_.

_**“And I would like to come to the house, thank you for offering. But I have a few requests.”** _

**__**_Anything_.

She wrote her requests - demands, really - in the form of a numbered list.

_**“1. Both of us will wear suppression suits when we are together in the house.** _

**_2\. You will sleep in the barn at night until I go into heat, and you will stay in the barn 24/7 while I am in heat, except when you come to the house to cook for me._ **

**_3\. You will cook for me (that spaghetti was amazing and I have just enough self-control to wait a couple of hours before I eat the chili). When I am in heat you will come twice a day and cook food for myself and for you; you will leave food for me in the kitchen and you will eat in the barn._ **

**_4\. At no time will you attempt to communicate with me while I am in heat. I will come to the barn to let you know when I’m through._ **

**_5\. You will arrange a clean, private space for me to have my heat._ **

**_6\. There isn’t cell service here, and my friend in Vancouver will be freaking out, so if I come to your house you will help me contact him so he knows I’m okay.”_ **

**_“I may have other requests when we meet in person.”_ **

**__**_When we meet in person_. Ben’s eyesight dimmed, just for a moment, and then he was fine again. He adjusted himself and read the last two lines of the letter.

_**“Send a letter back with Chewie agreeing to my requests, and if you do I’ll come to the house. If you don’t, or if you say anything that concerns me, I will stay in the barn and leave as soon as I can.”** _

**_“I look forward to meeting you soon, Ben.”_ **

Ben slumped back against the sofa and took a deep breath, pressing the paper against his face so he could inhale her sweet aroma. He was going to meet her. She was going to _come to the house_. If he didn’t fuck up too much now.

He needed to calm down before he could conceive a response to her, and he thought getting things ready for her might help.

The first thing she needed was a place to have her heat. The spare bedroom at the end of the hall would do nicely. It had its own ensuite bathroom, with a jacuzzi tub, and a king-sized bed, and a view down into the valley. It was the best room in the house, and had been his grandparents’ bedroom when they’d lived here; he’d never been comfortable claiming it as his own, but it would be perfect for Rey and he was sure his grandparents wouldn’t mind, rest their souls. The sheets hadn’t been changed in… he had no idea how long. It had been years since anyone had visited him. So he pulled off the coverlet and sheets, placed on a second mattress cover - he used them on all the beds, even the ones he didn’t use, because of a dust allergy and a general interest in personal hygiene - and replaced them with fresh ones. As he changed them he took note of the scents in the room. He never came in here, so his own scent was very dim. He could still smell his grandparents, Bail and Breha Organa, an alpha and an omega. They’d been unable to have children of their own, so they had adopted twins - Ben’s mother, Leia, and her brother Luke, both of them stereotypical alphas who had made Ben’s childhood more difficult than they knew, until it was too late. He hadn’t talked to either of them in at least twelve years.

There was a set of yellow sheets in the linen closet, not something he would ever purchase himself - his own taste running to black and grey - a bright and sunny shade. A leftover set from his grandparents, perhaps, or a gift from his mother. Every Christmas she sent him presents, and every Christmas he ignored her. The sheets reminded him of the omega's name - intense and dazzling, like a ray of sunshine - and he hoped she would like them. Then he swore to himself for even thinking that. _But you’d help anyone in trouble_ , his brain insisted. _You would_. He moved some hair and body products from his own bathroom to hers. They were all scented with cedar, sandalwood, and lime; not very feminine, but if she hadn’t bathed in several days maybe she wouldn’t be choosy.

The thought of her naked in the tub, washing herself with his shampoo, wiping down her body with his towels, letting him take care of her and smelling like him, had him going back to his own bathroom for another round with the flannel shirt, and then he headed to the kitchen.

He got deliveries about once a month. His friend Poe - his only friend, a scentless beta - would fly over from Billings with the usual staples; flour, coffee, toilet paper, frozen meat, etc. He was almost due for one, although he expected the snowfall would probably delay it this month. That was just as well - Ben had no idea what Poe would make of a female omega having a heat in Ben’s house, or of him allowing himself to be booted to the barn. He’d make fun of him, probably, tell him how he wasn’t being _alpha_ enough. Poe's wife Phasma was an alpha's alpha, and he was very proud of her for that (and proud of himself for convincing her that he was a suitable match for her). Because of this, Poe had some very strongly held opinions about what an alpha should be like, as though all alphas were the same - aggressive, possessive, forceful, whatever. Ben had grown up with a mother and uncle who embodied these stereotypes, and he’d decided at an early age that he would do anything to not to be like them. When he was small he’d wanted to be like his father, a beta - like most people. Normal. But then he’d presented as an alpha at fifteen, and he’d been told that he didn’t have a choice.

Ben Solo always had a choice. And as soon as he turned eighteen and inherited the trust fund and house his grandfather Bail had left him, he chose to leave. He went off to the wilds of Montana to be alone, where he was free to be an alpha on his own terms; where he didn’t have to worry about his biology ruling him. 

Still, there was nothing wrong with helping someone in need, especially not an omega getting ready to go into heat. 

There were cans of soup in one of the high cabinets, and he pulled them out onto the counter and took stock: beef and barley, cream of tomato, chicken noodle, several of each flavor. He found an old box of saltines and an unopened bag of Oreos that Poe had delivered - forgetting that Ben didn’t like them - in another cabinet. There was a steak in the fridge; he went into the chest freezer in the corner and pulled out another one, and then a package of hot dogs and hot dog buns, too, which he placed in the fridge to defrost. She hadn't mentioned the cake, but he went into the freezer again and pulled out the rest of that as well. He mixed a pitcher of powdered milk. It wasn’t nearly as good as fresh milk, but he didn’t have any of that, and it was better than nothing if she needed or wanted it.

He glanced around the kitchen to see if there was anything he might be missing, and his eyes set on the old bread machine, which he'd bought five years ago and only used twice; it turned out he preferred to make bread by hand, but he didn't have time for that just now. With shaking hands he measured the ingredients into the pan. He considered baking something fancy, with caraway seeds or raisins, but since he didn't know what she liked, he opted for a plain Italian loaf instead. With that done, he sat down at the dining room table to write his reply to Rey, loosely playing with the end of his braid with the fingers of his left hand.

* * *

As soon as the dog was out the door, Rey gave in and ate the chili. She wasn’t really hungry anymore, but she was nervous, and she wasn’t used to a surplus of food so she figured it was better to eat it and get it in her than put it off any longer. The food gave her strength, and that burst of strength added to a burst of uncharacteristic nervous energy that had her wrapping herself in the blanket and pacing the main part of the barn. It was dusty from what she guessed was years of disuse. There weren't any animals, probably hadn’t been any for ages, and the equipment appeared, to her untrained eye, to be quite ancient. Ben's scent was almost non-existent out here, and she had to take occasional visits back into the office to pick it up again. It calmed her even as she could feel it encouraging the muscles in her vagina to relax and open, and the slick to dampen her panties even more than usual when nearing her heat. But she found that she didn't mind; this was Ben, and he made her feel safe. _You’re being very silly_ , her brain admonished her. _You’re entirely too trusting_. She chose to ignore the warnings, for now.

Chewie showed up panting and jolly, the familiar backpack strapped to him, slack from lack of contents. According to Rey's phone, finally fully charged, he hadn’t even been gone an hour; it wasn't even noon. She figured that was either a good sign, or a very bad one. There was no in between.

The bag contained only a new letter; pinned to it with a red paperclip was a tiny, delicate flower - a rose, she thought - folded out of yellow paper. She'd heard of this, some Japanese art tradition, but she couldn't remember what it was called. She wiped hot tears off her cheek and sniffed the material, which was slightly shiny on one side. It smelled like rain. She tucked it carefully behind her ear, and read Ben’s letter.

After reading the letter, she decided the quick turnaround was good news after all. He simply agreed to all her terms, and reminded her that he’d be cooking steaks for dinner and was looking forward to making one for her, too.

She’d left the suppression suit folded on one corner of the cot, out of the way until she’d made a decision. Before unfolding it, Rey pushed her face into it and took a good sniff. Where Ben’s hands had touched it, it smelled of trees and water and smoke, but there were other scents there, too. It had been in a basement for a long time, or an attic - she thought basement, because there was a definite hint of dampness, of earth. There were the scents of other people there, too; at least one other alpha, and, she thought, two omegas, but the scents were old and had lost any power they might once have had. 

The suit was the color of sand, although Rey thought it may have been white when it was new and she tried not to think too hard about that. It was an old style, designed to be practical rather than stylish, and came in two pieces that zipped together around the middle. It was sized for someone a couple of inches shorter than her, so the cuffs came up above her ankles and wrists, and to her dismay, it was just small enough that she couldn’t wear it over her clothes. She removed her jeans and shirt and tucked them into her duffle bag, leaving on just her panties and bra. Even though the suit was a bit small, it made a tight seal around her neck, covering her scent glands and mating gland completely and comfortably. That was the most important part, that the suit that would suppress the source of her scent to anyone around her; the rest of it was mostly to keep hormones off her skin, so they wouldn’t affect her when she removed the mask, but if he was wearing a suit too that shouldn’t be an issue. There was a pair of gloves, too, which she pulled on although there was a gap between the arm cuff and the edge of the gloves. She knew that it wouldn’t make a difference, but it made her feel good to wear them; as though she was suiting up to protect herself; to protect both of them.

 _He’s never had a rut_. He’d told her that. _What kind of alpha had never had a rut?_ But he was so kind - if he didn’t want to have a rut, she would do everything in her power to ensure that he wouldn’t have one.

Once she was suited up, Rey turned her attention to the mask. It was a full-head style, more like a helmet than a mask, and she groaned at having to wear it. But if she wanted to go in the house she had to do it; everything in there would smell like Ben, and the state she was in, one whiff of his personal space could send her straight into heat, and one whiff of _her_ could very well send him to rut. Like the suit, the mask was made of heavy suppression cloth, with black-lensed goggles that fit around the head with an elastic strap, and a tight neck-piece that was designed to align perfectly with the neck of the suit. The two pieces together would form an airtight seal, and should be strong enough to allow an omega in heat, or an alpha in rut, to be able to spend time in public for short periods of time. As well as offering protection for themselves, the suits would also protect the olfactory nerves of anyone wishing to avoid being exposed to pheromones. Rey pulled the thing carefully on her head, put the neck-piece in place, and could no longer smell Ben at all. The loss of his scent brought tears to her eyes, and then she doubled over from a cramp in her stomach. She knew it was just biology, and that she would be going to see him, which she supposed was even better than smelling him, but still. It hurt; it _hurt_.

Rey double-checked that she’d gathered all her belongings, such as they were, into her duffel bag. She pulled her boots on and shrugged on her coat, turned off the kerosene heater, turned off the lights in the office, and headed towards the house, with Chewie at her heels.

Ben was waiting for her. She could see him even from across the snow-covered yard, standing in the floor-to-ceiling window abutting the front door of the house. She hadn’t paid too much attention to the house when she’d arrived; it had been night-time, and the house had loomed on its hill. The barn had seemed more organic, more welcoming; she hadn’t even considered ringing the doorbell of the house. It was an expansive ranch house, not a traditional farmhouse, but a low, single-storied building with a taller roof on one side than on the other. The front door sat towards the middle of the house, where the high roof met the low. There were lots of windows, and a tall brick chimney poked out of the high roof, through which puffs of smoke appeared to greet the cloudless sky. She’d smelled the woodsmoke from the barn; it was always pleasant, never acrid, but she couldn’t smell it now, through the suppression mask. It was a good house, though not really a place for her, but she was going there anyway.

Through the window Ben appeared tall, very tall, and large, with broad shoulders and large hands that were pressed against the window, palms out, encased in black gloves. The mere size of him had her stomach clenching and more slick dripping in her panties. She was suddenly relieved that he’d be wearing the mask; she hadn’t changed her clothes in three days and didn’t even want to think about what she must smell like. His hair was dark, and pulled back so it was hard to tell exactly how long it was. As she came closer - keeping her eyes on the ground and stepping carefully through the knee-deep snow, glancing up only as safety allowed - she could see that he was wearing a suppression suit, too. It was head-to-toe black, with a high collar that covered his glands. The suit was tight, and his erection was obvious, and very large. Her body responded automatically, releasing even more slick into her already drenched underwear. _RIP my panties_ , she thought to herself. She tried her best not to look at him down there, but she still knew, and that’s what mattered. Ben didn’t seem to notice his own erection at all; he didn’t bother to try to cover it up, and his eyes were on her.

He was younger than she expected. Despite the fact that he’d never had a rut she thought he'd be at least forty, maybe even fifty, judging by the formal language of his letters, the food, the fact that he lives by himself in the middle of nowhere. But he looked closer to thirty, perhaps younger, and his eyes were beautiful - his whole face was. She’d never seen anyone who looked like him. Once up the steps she could clearly distinguish the color of his eyes; they were a kind of soft light brown - like amber, or honey. His nose was large, and she thought about kissing it; his lips were full, and pink, and she thought about kissing them, too. She desperately wished that she had kept her own mask off until she’d reached the house; she wanted him to see her, too. But when she lifted her hands up towards the head covering he waved and yelled, “No, no!” She could hear his voice through the glass, just barely; it was deep and soft, even though he was yelling, and she wanted to hear it more clearly. But then he slipped on his own mask - black, with chrome detailing around his black goggles - what was it with the 1950s and black goggles in the suppression masks? Did people regularly wander around in them in the sunlight? The mask was followed by a hood, which covered the rest of his head, and he stepped behind the door, and then the door opened.

Chewie bounded through first, and she followed him slowly, carefully. Ben faced her, encased from head-to-toe in black, erection still _right there_ , his right hand on the doorknob. Why didn’t mid century suppression suits have controlling codpieces? Rey knew that they were standard in modern suits. 

_Stop thinking about Ben’s cock_ , her mind scolded her. It didn’t help.

Ben raised his left hand in greeting.

“Hey,” he said. The mask muffled his voice and made it sound deeper than it had through the glass, but it was still his voice and hearing made her relax, just a bit. “Can you smell anything?”

She hadn’t noticed, but she took a hearty sniff. The only thing she could smell was the musty interior of the mask. She shook her head. 

“Me neither,” he said, and pushed the door closed behind them. He held out his right hand.

“I’m Ben. Uh, I guess you probably knew that. Thanks for coming up to the house.”

Rey took his gloved hand in her own, and felt an immediate connection to him as his hand engulfed hers. “I’m Rey,” she replied, hating the way her own voice sounded in the mask. “But I guess you figured that out too. Thanks for inviting me. Your barn is nice but this is much nicer.”

“I bet,” he said, then gestured at her, and she realized he was asking for her bag. She tugged the strap from her shoulder and handed it to him. Moisture gathered in the corners of her eyes. _He’s being polite_ , her brain admonished. _You don’t have to cry just because he’s nice_.

“You can take off your coat, too, and your boots” he said. “I usually just use the fire in the living room for heat, but I turned on the central heat for you.” _He turned on the heat for me_. A tear escaped her right eye and tracked its way down her chin.

Rey shrugged off her coat and hung it on one of the pegs that lined the wall beside the front door. There were several of them, but only two of them had anything hanging on them - one heavy overcoat with a scarf, and the other one a Carhartt jacket. Rey’s battered overcoat made it three; just a little less lonely. Then she crouched and untied her boots, toed them off, and set them under her coat. Her socks were thin but the carpet of the hallway was thick and comfortable under the soles of her feet. Once her hands were free she pushed the fabric of the mask against her cheek, in an attempt to wipe at the tear, but all it did was spread the water across her face.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked, and his concern only made her more tearful. 

“I’m fine,” she sighed. “Just… hormonal stuff.”

It wasn’t clear if he understood what she meant, but Ben nodded sympathetically and then got back to business, gesturing down the hall to her left. “The bedrooms are down here, I’ve set up the one on the end for you. For your, uh, heat.” He turned his head as he said that, and Rey could almost hear the blush in his voice; it made her smile. “Would you like to see it?”

“Yes, please,” Rey nodded, and he turned and strode down the hall, which lacked electric ceiling lights but was lit instead by skylights that ran the length of the space. As he walked away from her, she noticed that he was also shoeless, and wore black socks with little gold stars on them. They passed three doors on the right and one on the left before reaching the door at the very end of the hall. 

The room he led her into was the largest bedroom she’d ever seen. There were three sets of windows on the long wall that faced the valley, and a smaller set of windows at the back, through which she could see the mountains. The bathroom was to their left, and through the open door she could just see a large bathtub and a separate shower stall. _A separate tub and shower_. She’d never even heard of such a thing. She didn’t deserve it. The inside of her mask was getting uncomfortably moist, and she was afraid the goggles would start fogging up soon.

Ben set the bag on a kind of backless sofa that extended the end of the bed. The bed itself was huge - a king, she was certain - and had a white covering with holes in it, through which she could see the bright yellow of the sheets beneath. The color was cheery and made her feel good. Had he changed the sheets for her? Had he known she would like the color?

“There are more blankets in the closet, if you get cold,” Ben said, pointing to a door behind her, next to the bathroom. She opened it to find an enormous closet - as large as some bedrooms she’d had - with piles of blankets on high shelves, and rows of old clothes hanging beneath. 

The voice came from beside her ear. “I don’t know if you’ll need them. Uh, I can take some of them out now, if you’d like.”

Rey jumped; Ben had moved across the room and was standing right behind her, but as soon as he noticed her discomfort he took a few steps back.

“Sorry about that,” he said, and took one more step away. “I’m not used to being around people. I’ve forgotten how to act. And you’re, uh,” she could hear his blush again. “Even though I can’t smell you, you’re still really distracting.”

He was so honest, it was refreshing, and she found herself not minding so much that he’d sneaked up so close behind her.

“It’s okay,” she said, stepping back herself and pulling the closet door closed. He was distracting too, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “I won’t need blankets, I don’t think, but thanks for offering.”

He didn’t answer, but just stood there. She felt as though he was watching her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. 

“Thank you for the room,” she said, pressing the fabric of the mask against her cheeks again. “It’s perfect.”

He stood up a bit straighter, lifted his chin, and when he spoke his voice sounded strained. 

“I am very glad you like it. I hope it will be comfortable for you.” He reached his right hand behind his head, paused, and brought it back around to the front. It seemed like a nervous tic.

“Are you all right, Ben?”

“I, uh, have long hair, and when I get nervous I like to touch it. It’s up in this thing now,” he gestured to the hood, “so I can’t get to it, but it doesn’t seem to keep me from trying.”

Rey smiled again behind her mask. “If it helps you feel better you can take the hood off, if you can do it without taking the mask off. As long as I keep my mask on it won’t affect me.”

He sighed, and took a step towards the door. “I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you,” Ben admitted. “I feel safe, covered up like this.” He paused. “I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

Rey walked past him and out the door. “Not at all. I feel the same way.”

He followed her back to the front hall, pulling the door to the bedroom shut behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rey and Ben get to know each other better. And then... oops!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's slow moving, like a cruise ship, but we're getting there! I've been letting the backstory write itself and I'm pretty pleased with it; I hope you like it too.

Rey led the way back to the front hall, and paused before walking into the room beyond. Ben came to stand next to her.

“This is the living room,” he said. “You’re my guest. Make yourself at home.”

“Ben, please,” she implored, “I need to contact my friend; he's going to be worried about me.”

Ben stood up straighter, and set his shoulders. It was a pure alpha move, preparing to face a competitor, the kind of thing that usually annoyed her, but with this man it just seemed dear. The thought of Finn as a competitor - a sweet man and a good friend, but a beta, the most beta of betas - made Rey want to giggle, but she held back for the sake of all of them. 

“Yes, of course,” Ben said. “Follow me.”

The main room was a bright space, with a high ceiling and tall windows that faced the barn and the forest beyond. A formal dining area was to their left, with its own windows that presented a fine view of the mountains at the back of the house. They walked through this room towards the open kitchen, straight ahead of them. Ben led her to the kitchen island and handed her an intense-looking cordless phone that was laying there. 

“This is a satellite phone, it functions like a regular phone only when you call out or in you need to include the international code. If he’s in Canada, that means you need to dial zero zero one first, and he’ll have to do that to call here, and it’ll be expensive. Okay?”

“Okay, sure,” she replied, and prepared to dial the number, then raised her head to direct her goggles at him in the most obvious way she could.

“Ah,” he said. “I’ll go in the other room and give you some privacy.”

She waited as he walked into the living room, paused briefly, and then kept walking down the hallway. She heard the sound of a door opening and shutting, and only then did she dial her friend’s number. He didn’t answer - he never answered calls from unfamiliar numbers - so she left him a message knowing that he would probably listen to it immediately and call her right back.

“Hey, Finn, this is Rey. I’m sorry for being out of touch but I’ve been stuck in Montana without service. I finally found a person who’s letting me use their phone. Unfortunately there’s been a snow storm and I’m gonna be stuck here for a while. So, uh, yeah. I’ll be there as soon as I can but it’ll be another week or more. Call me back? This number, but dial zero zero one first. It’s expensive, and if you haven’t called in three minutes I’ll just call you back.”

She cancelled the call and stood with the phone in her hand; less than a minute later it rang, a high metallic sound that echoed loudly in the hard space. She answered the call immediately.

“Rey!” He shouted, before she could even greet him. “What the hell! What happened? Are you really okay? This is Rey, isn’t it? Please say something!”

His shouts finally faded out on the other end of the line, and Rey was able to reply.

“Yes, it’s me, Finn. I’m fine. I was hitchhiking out of Billings and this lady picked me up, but then she drove up into the mountains and kicked me out of the car when I didn’t have any money, so I walked for a while and there was a homestead with a barn, so that’s where I’ve been. This morning the guy who lives there found me and I’m in his house now.”

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.

“Finn? You there?”

There was a _pfft_ , like air being blown through lips.

“You had money. You had money for a bus ticket. What happened?”

Rey’s eyes were watering again, and she cursed the damn mask as she tried again, unsuccessfully, to wipe the tears with the suppression fabric. 

“Plutt happened. I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t have any money so I hitchhiked, okay? I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Rey,” her friend moaned; she could imagine him leaning back, pressing his fingers against his forehead. “I worry about you anyway. I wish you’d called me, I could have wired you some cash, or bought you a ticket myself. It’s not worth arguing about now. Just promise me you’ll let me know next time, okay? I’m here for you.”

The knot in Rey’s stomach began to unravel. She hated arguing more than just about anything. She was good at it, but it made her feel ill.

“Yes, I promise.”

“So you say you’re in Montana? In a barn?”

“I’m calling from the house. The guy let me in and he’s going to let me stay here until I can leave. There’s been a snowstorm and there’s no way out for a while.”

Finn sighed. “Rey, I hate to be the one to mention the elephant in the room, but you’re due for a heat. Do you have enough suppressants to last you a week? If you double up you might be able to keep it at bay until you get here. It would be a…”

“Plutt took my suppressants,” Rey interrupted. “He was trying to keep me from leaving. I’m going to go into heat tomorrow, probably.”

Finn’s anger was palpable even from 1000 miles away. “Wait, let me get this straight, Plutt _took your suppressants_? And now you’re in the middle of nowhere and you’re getting ready to go into heat in a barn? Jesus, Rey, I’m so sorry. I wish I could be there with you.”

Rey sobbed in misery as tears dripped down her chin. They were beginning to form a little puddle in the chin of the mask. 

“Baby,” he continued, “Come on, it’ll be fine. This guy you’re with - you feel safe with him?”

She sniffled, but the thought of Ben cheered her up. “Oh yeah, he seems fine.” She thought about the room at the end of the hall, the food, the offer of blankets. “More than fine, I really like him.”

“Rey likes a guy? That’s a first.” They laughed together, and Finn continued on more seriously. “What’s your heat plan? Can he help you?”

“Okay, so, he’s an alpha, but he’s never had a rut, and he doesn’t want to, so I think the answer to that question is a big no. He set up a room in the house for me and he’ll be out in the barn for the duration.”

Finn’s silence contained multitudes.

“Rey, I’m feeling really torn. Are you sure you’re safe? You sure he’s not just setting you up?”

It was a fair question, although Rey rankled at having him ask it. She thought of the swooping lines of Ben’s calligraphic handwriting, the food he sent her, his sweet dog, his willingness to put his own comfort aside for her.

 _Alpha takes care of you_ , the quiet voice in her head sang, and she didn’t know if it was her brain or her body.

“Absolutely certain. You’d like this guy, Finn. He’s good. He’s doing his best. OH, the best part - he has these old suppression suits, like you see in the movies? I think they belonged to his grandparents. Wild.”

Finn laughed, long and hard. “Ah, man, I love those things. Do they still work? Do the masks have the chrome? _Please_ tell me the masks have chrome detailing.”

“They work, sure, I can’t smell anything in this thing. Mine’s like a burlap sack, but his looks really good." She thought about its lack of a controlling codpiece but figured it best not to mention that. "And yeah, with the chrome and everything. It makes him look like the murderer in _Rear Window_ or something.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I believe you.” He sighed. “I trust you, baby. If you feel safe, I am going to believe that you’re safe. But I want you to call me, okay? I know the heat’ll make that difficult, but at least call me tomorrow, and again when it’s over. I will send you money for a bus ticket. Hell, I’ll splurge for Amtrak! I still want you here. I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Finn,” Rey replied, silently cursing the damp inside of the mask. They said goodbye and hung up the phone, but before she went to find Ben, Rey glanced around the kitchen until she spied a door to the outside. She was through it in a moment, closing the door tight behind her, and ripped the mask off. Her collected tears dripped out, making patterns on the wooden porch.

“Fuck. _Fuck fuck fuck_.” The overflow of tears were a definite sign that heat was very close.

A noise behind her pulled her attention back, and she turned to find Ben - still solidly encased in his mask and suit - peeking at her through the window of the door.

“Are you okay?” He shouted, his voice muted because of the mask, and the door.

“Fine,” she smiled at him and wiped her tears away with her gloved hand. “Just needed a bit of fresh air, that’s all.” 

“But you’re crying. Did your friend upset you?” It was a simple question, but there was a degree of protectiveness in it. That would have set her off with any other alpha, but she didn’t mind it so much coming from Ben.

“It’s hormones, that’s all. I always cry a lot when I’m about to go into heat. It’s just… what my body does.”

He didn’t answer. She took a deep breath; the scent of snow and trees flooded her olfactory system, and there was a whiff of him, too - just enough to calm her - and slipped the mask back over her head. When she was satisfied that the seal around her neck was tight, she headed back inside.

They went back to the living room. It contained two long sofas, which faced each other, with a glass-covered coffee table between them and a large stone fireplace at the end where cheery flames danced around wooden logs. The wall facing the fireplace was dominated by a large flat television, with a cabinet just beneath. Ben stepped around the coffee table and sat stiffly in the center of that sofa, his back to the window, so Rey claimed the other one, groaning as she sank into the cushions. Ben made a noise that she thought was a laugh.

“You laugh,” she grumbled, “but this is much more comfortable than the cot in your barn.”

“That’s why I’m laughing,” he replied. “You look very comfortable.”

She sat up straight and tucked her feet under her, and Chewie jumped up next to her and laid his head on her lap. Rey pressed her gloved fingers into his fur and enjoyed the muted sensation of his softness.

“So,” Ben said, and she glanced back across the coffee table at him. “Do you need anything? Are you hungry, or thirsty? Do you need to use the bathroom or anything?”

Rey shook her head and looked back at the dog. “No thanks. I’ll take a bath tonight. I’m stuffed; I ate the chili, too, the container is in my duffle bag. I’ll wash it tonight.”

Ben didn’t reply; she could see him wringing his hands on his knees, blocking her view of his groin. She couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. She wondered if he'd touched himself while she was on the phone and couldn't decide if she wanted to know. Ben sat there silently, watching her pet the dog. Chewie fell asleep and started to snore, and flames crackled in the fireplace, and Ben watched Rey while she watched the sleeping dog. When the silence was on the cusp of becoming unbearable and Rey had just about decided she would need to think of something to say, Ben spoke.

"So, what do you do for fun?"

Rey couldn't help it; she laughed. "Seriously? You find a mysterious woman in your barn, an omega about to go into heat, and you want to know what she does for fun?"

"I guess," he shifted uncomfortably, stiff and upright in his seat, "if you're going to be here a few days we should figure out if I have anything here to help keep you entertained while you… uh. It's also been years since I spoke to someone new. It's," he turned his head, and she could sense his blush again, "it's nice."

Rey’s eyes were watering again, behind her mask. Finn knew everything about her, and nobody else ever asked; it was strange and nice to feel like somebody cared. It _was_ nice.

"Okay, huh. I like fixing things. I do it for work, I'm a mechanic, like with cars, but Finn - that's my friend - he gave me his old laptop right before he moved and I've been teaching myself computer programming. Nothing fancy, Python scripting, a little web development. I want to go to college but I don't know if I'll ever be able to afford it."

"Computers are cool. I have one in my office, I can show you later if you'd like. I take college classes online sometimes, art history and literature mostly, I don't know any programming stuff though."

Considering the house, Rey figured Ben probably had a much nicer computer than she ever would. 

"I'd like that, thank you."

"Of course." Ben's body relaxed slightly; she could see his feet through the glass top of the coffee table, his feet turned at the ankle, soles facing each other. "Anything else? Not-work stuff?"

"I like old movies," she said. "There's a theater in Fargo that shows classic movies for a dollar on Sunday afternoons, double features, I got into them when I was in middle school and I could get away. I've read some books about the filmmakers, too, from the library. Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Mon Mothma."

He tilted his head. “Your parents didn’t like to let you go out by yourself? Sounds like mine, so protective.”

Rey stilled, and thought about how to answer that question in a way that wouldn’t completely put him off. “Uh, something like that, sure.” She flinched at her own lie, but he nodded.

“I get it. You like Mothma?”

“Yes!” Film would always be a much more comfortable topic than family, for Rey. “She’s one of my favorites, even though she only made a few films. I love that she was able to work openly as a female omega in an alpha male-dominated industry. You like her?”

"Yeah, of course. Her Omega Noir series is incredible. Subversive, even groundbreaking in its time.”

“Oh my God, Omega Noir! I _love_ those movies!” Rey didn’t bother trying to hide her excitement. “I tried to get Finn to watch them with me for a while, but he didn’t get the alpha/omega dynamics. He just ended up falling asleep.”

“Your friend’s a beta?” Rey thought she heard a tinge of interest in his muffled voice, but figured it was her heat-ready imagination and ignored it.

“Finn? Yeah.”

She wanted him to ask, to express more interest in her friendship. Did she want him to be jealous? She hated jealousy. But he didn’t ask; he changed the subject back to movies. That was disappointing, but probably safer.

“What's your favorite movie?"

"Oh, gosh," she moaned, leaning further into the dog. He was very warm and furry. "I don't think I could pick just one. I adore anything with Grace Kelly. So, one of hers, I guess."

"She was an omega too, wasn't she. I’m sensing a trend."

Rey laughed. "She was, but nobody knew until the end of her life. She passed as an alpha. Must have had some kickass suppressants."

“I love Grace Kelly, too. _Dial ‘M’ for Murder_. _To Catch a Thief_. _Rear Window_ , all of them.” He gestured to the flatscreen TV on the wall. “I have a bunch of classics on DVD, if you want to watch sometime.”

“That’d be nice,” she said. “Thanks.” 

“Just a sec.” Ben stood, and walked out of the room. A door opened, then closed again a few seconds later, and he was back, holding a frame, which he thrust towards her. 

“Here, take a look. You might like this.”

It was a framed photograph, in black-and-white, a handful of people standing on a deck that Rey was pretty sure was the deck attached to the front of the house they were in. The people were dressed for the summer, the three women in flattering dresses and hats, the men - two of them - in long trousers and short-sleeved button ups. It was a casual shot, and they were all laughing. It took Rey a moment to realize what she was looking at.

“Wait,” she said, pointing to the two blonde women, standing with their heads together. “Is that…”

“Mon Mothma and Grace Kelly, yes. The other woman is my grandmother, Breha Organa. She grew up with Mon, and they were friends their whole lives. She used to visit in the summer, I remember from when I was a kid, before she died.” He pointed at the men. “That’s my grandfather, Bail, and of course that’s Prince Rainier.”

“Oh my God,” Rey said, holding the photo up so she could get a better look at it through her goggles. “Oh my God. You knew Mon Mothma. That’s _amazing_.”

Ben shrugged and sat next to her. She resisted her first instinct, which was to lean into him, and leaned further into Chewie instead. 

“I guess? I never talked to her about her movies or anything, she was always just an old friend of my grandparents. Now that I’m into film it feels like a lost opportunity.”

Rey handed the photo back, and he set it on the side table next to him. 

“So, what’s a guy like you doing, living out here all by yourself?”

“What do you mean, “a guy like me”?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, like you. You seem really nice, but you’re an alpha who’s never had a rut, and you live by yourself out in the middle of nowhere. You have a nice house and a really sweet dog. You have long hair. You make good spaghetti.”

She was rambling but Ben didn't seem to care.

“The house belonged to my grandparents - Breha and Bail. They died when I was a teenager, and when I turned eighteen I inherited it, along with a trust fund. I moved out here as soon as I could, and I haven’t left since then.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“Not really. I like to be alone. I have a friend who flies in once a month, delivers mail and everything else I need. He’ll stay a few days; by the time he leaves I’m ready for him to go.”

“You don’t take suppressants. Is that why you stay here by yourself? So you don’t have to suppress?”

Ben stood up, then sat down again. He tapped his foot and sighed. Rey could almost hear the gears in his head moving as he tried to decide what to say; it was endearing, and she thought she liked it.

He finally spoke. “What do suppressants do, Rey? How do they make you feel?”

“They suppress my hormones and pheremones,” Rey shrugged, “they make me tired sometimes, but they also keep me from doing stupid shit, and they keep random alphas from following me around. It's worth it for that; alphas can be really annoying. Uh, no offense.”

Ben curled his fingers into fists; the stiff leather of his gloves creaked sympathetically.

He pressed again. “But how does that make you _feel_?” 

“Fine? I never really thought about it. Why, how does it make _you_ feel?”

Ben stood again, and walked around the sofa to stand by the tall window, the one that faced the barn that had been Rey’s home for the past few days. He was quiet again, and after a moment’s pause she came to stand beside him.

“I came here to visit my grandparents every summer when I was a kid,” Ben said softly. “This is my favorite place in the world, and my very favorite thing about it is the way it smells. The snow makes it dull, and it’s always less potent in the winter, but in the summer, my God. So many plants, each with a distinctive scent. The animals, the creek, the soil itself, it’s all, just… the _aromas_.” He turned his head to her, and she wished that she could see his eyes through those black lenses. “I would lie outside in the grass for hours and just breathe it all in; I’d take myself into the forest and have my own scent adventures. Nothing else like it.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Rey said, and she meant it. Her olfactory system worked about as well as the next omega’s, but from what Ben said it sounded as though he had a particularly keen sense of smell, even for an alpha.

“It is,” Ben insisted. “But when I was fifteen and I presented as an alpha, I was put on high-quality suppressants. That was in the early spring, and I knew it was affecting my olfactory system, but I didn’t realize how bad it was until I came up here that summer. I couldn’t smell _anything_. I remember laying out on my back in the yard, seeing the trees and the plants and feeling the grass against my back, and not being able to smell any of it at all, and just crying because it felt like everything had died. And I wanted to die, too.”

Rey’s heart twisted in her chest. “Oh my God, Ben, I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “So I stopped taking my suppressants. After about three days I could smell again, but Grandpa Bail could tell, and made me go back on. So I did, for a few days, but then I stopped, and then it happened again. He ended up forcing me, essentially; he’d make me take them in front of him, before breakfast. It was humiliating, and made me so angry. I know now he was just trying to protect me, but at the time I hated him. It was a bad summer.”

His fist was so tight down by his thigh, Rey didn’t even think before reaching out and pressing her fingers against his tense grip. In a moment he relaxed his hand enough for her to slip her own hand into his. As it had earlier, his hand completely enveloped hers.

 _Alpha’s hands will keep you safe_ , her body whispered. _They will make you feel good_. She pressed her thighs together and hoped Ben didn’t notice.

“You live alone so you can smell?”

Ben sighed behind his mask. “It sounds silly when you say it, but yes. I’m miserable if I can’t smell, and every suppressant I’ve ever taken shuts down my olfactory system completely. I can’t live like that. It might seem ridiculous to you, but it’s worth it to be by myself out here, as long as I can smell the world.”

Ben’s hand tightened around hers, his voice raised, and she turned towards him, placing her second hand around his without realizing she was doing it.

“Hey, it’s fine. I can’t pretend to know that that’s like but if you’re willing to do it, it must be worth it to you.”

He relaxed, and his thumb pressed against the side of her hand. “Thank you. My family doesn’t understand. The last time I talked to my dad he yelled at me and called me a recluse, accused me of abandoning the family. I haven’t seen them since.”

“That’s ironic.”

“Yeah.” He shifted to face her, too, and leaned towards her. “I proved him right, didn’t I.”

“He shouldn’t have said that to you,” Rey insisted, surprised at the fire in her own voice. “That was unkind. You should be free to live your life as you want to, and I’m sorry he wasn’t supportive of your choices.”

Ben didn’t say anything at all to that. They stood facing each other for the next few minutes, holding hands, the dog snoring softly on the sofa. Rey didn’t want to let go.

“You’re very pretty,” 

Ben’s words, spoken into the comfortable silence, surprised her, considering she was wrapped head-to-toe in sand-colored fabric, and she answered honestly. 

“You’re pretty too.”

His posture, which had tightened the moment he spoke - post-accidental-confession embarrassment, she was pretty sure - relaxed, and she laughed. He laughed, too, which made her relax more. It felt nice. Comfortable. Safe.

“It’s good that we have that in common,” she said, and tugged his hand to lead him back to the sofa, where they sat down by Chewie again, side-by-side, each of them turned toward the other.

“So Ben,” Rey began, once they were settled. “Your last letter to me included a little flower, made of paper? I’ve seen that before. It’s Japanese?”

“Origami,” Ben said. “Traditionally Japanese, although these days it’s more international than that. I taught myself some origami a couple of years ago, when I was looking for something new to do. I find it challenging, and relaxing.”

“The flower you made me was so pretty.” She reached her hand up to the side of her head, then realized the helmet completely covered her. “I put it behind my ear earlier, but I wasn’t thinking about it, with the helmet. I suppose it fell in the barn, or maybe outside the kitchen.” She was bummed - it had been such a sweet gift and she’d wanted to hold onto it, but the excitement of everything else had distracted her. 

“It’s not hard,” Ben assured her. “I’ll make you another one.” He got up and walked to the cabinet under the television set on the wall. When he opened it she could see it was full - rows of DVDs, a few gaming consoles, some books and boxes that she thought were probably games - and after a moment of digging around he came back to her holding a narrow box. He set it on the table and opened it, revealing a stack of colorful paper. The top sheet appeared to be a dull blue, although Rey expected without the dimming effect of the goggles it would be much brighter. Ben pulled it out, a little awkwardly because of the gloves, pushed the box aside, and laid the paper on the table.

“Is a blue flower all right with you?”

“Sure,” she shrugged, hoping she sounded more apathetic than she felt. She was, in fact, almost delirious with excitement. _Alpha will make something pretty for you_ , some part of her helpfully declared. She didn’t even mind the tears rolling down her cheeks, or the uncomfortably pleasant throbbing between her legs.

“Well, fuck,” Ben muttered. “Wasn’t thinking about the gloves. This might be a little sloppy, and I’m sorry about that.”

“That’s okay,” Rey replied, sounding quite breathy in her own head. “I’ll love it no matter what.”

Ben tilted his head towards her, and she wished again that she could see his face. Was he blushing? How large were his eyes? Did he feel the same way she did? He had an erection - she couldn’t help but notice - but he’d had one since she arrived at the house so at this point it didn’t tell her much about the state of his mind.

Rey watched Ben as he started folding the paper. He folded it on the diagonal, then opened it up and folded on the other diagonal. The gloves didn’t seem to slow him down at all, and after another couple of folds Rey gave up on trying to figure out what he was doing, and just watched. Fold after fold after fold, unfolding and refolding, and after a few minutes he pulled a small, smooth stick out of the box of paper and used it to curl around the edges that emerged from the folds as he gently tugged them forth. Just a few minutes more and he held it out to her: a perfect, tiny, blue rose. She held out her palm and he dropped it in.

“There you go,” he murmured. “A flower for a flower.”

“Thank you,” Rey said, and held it up in front of her goggles so she could see it better. She wanted to say more to him - _you don’t have to say sweet things to me, I already like you, I_ really _like you_ \- but she didn’t know how to do it without making her sound like an omega pining for an alpha, which she absolutely wasn’t. She just liked Ben. So instead she said, “How about we watch a movie?”

“That’s a great idea!” Ben jumped up and went back to the cabinet, and she followed, crouching down on the ground beside him.

He hadn’t been kidding when he said he was a fan of classic film. The bottom portion of the cabinet was a drawer, and he pulled it out to reveal row upon row of DVD covers - she saw many films she recognized, and some she didn’t. One with a stark black spine caught her eye.

“What’s that one?” She asked pointing to it. 

“That,” he said, pulling it out, “is a copy of the only films made by a director who is virtually unknown: Padmé Amidala. Have you heard of her?”

“Padmé Amidala… that name is so familiar, I’m sure I’ve seen it in a book somewhere, but I can’t remember. Who was she? What movies did she make?”

Ben handed it to her; it was plain black, with a handwritten description in ink, on paper, inserted behind the plastic of the back cover. The ink had at one time been black, and the paper had been white, but both had faded and were now darker and lighter shades of what Rey guessed were yellowish-brown, although they just looked dull through the goggles. She glanced at it as Ben spoke.

“Amidala was a contemporary of Mothma’s and a friend of my grandmother’s as well. She was interested in experimentation, pushing boundaries - more than Mothma, much more. She was an alpha, and very political. She made creepy, short films that starred her husband, a man named Anakin Skywalker, an omega. Have you heard of him, too?”

Rey shook her head, intrigued by Ben’s words and by the description on the back of the DVD.

“He wasn’t really an actor, or at least he wasn’t trained as one, and he only starred in four films - all of them directed by Amidala, and all of them on that disc. Their designations played a major role in their films; a female alpha directing a male omega, who was also her mate? It would be unusual today, and back then it was very taboo. Their story is quite sad: they died together in a car crash, just a few weeks after their children were born. Car went right off a cliff.”

“Oh my God,” Rey breathed. “That’s horrible. Were the children okay?”

Ben chuckled and opened the DVD player that was on the top shelf. “I guess so. They were my mom, and my uncle; my grandparents adopted them right after the accident. The twin children of Amidala and Skywalker.” He held out a hand, and Rey opened the case and handed the disc to him. “They weren’t in the car when it crashed,” he clarified, as he set the movie to play, and Rey couldn’t help but smile behind the mask.

They settled back down on the sofa, and this time Rey didn’t try to keep away from Ben. She didn’t exactly try to snuggle with him, either, although within a few minutes his arm was around her and she was cozy, nestled into his side. She felt warm and a bit sleepy, her mind drifty, a mood that suited the first film, which was dark and strange and seemed to have very little plot. An unnamed man - played by Skywalker, who was tall and young and quite handsome, in a more classic mode than his grandson - walked down a long, dark hallway, lit only by occasional wall sconces. Every third or so sconce was off or broken. 

After a few very slow minutes he turned down another hallway, identical to the first. The only sound was the shuffle of his footsteps, and his quiet breathing. The hallways reminded Rey of hotels she’d seen in movies, only there were no doors; the walls of the hallway were smooth wallpaper. Midway down the second hallway there was a sound offscreen, like something heavy and metallic being dropped, and the man glanced behind him and then started walking a bit faster. He reached the end of the hallway and turned; another hallway greeted him, identical to the other two. After another few minutes the sound came again, and again he glanced over his shoulder - his face now reflecting concern bordering on horror - and his footsteps increased, his breathing became louder.

And this was the film. For minute upon agonizing minute this man first walked, then ran from hallway to naked hallway, chased by some unfathomable something, no accompanying noise aside from his footsteps and breath, and the occasional strange metallic sound.

The film ended suddenly, when the man reached the end of a hallway, and discovered there was no other hallway to run to; just a dead end. He turned to face the camera, back to the wall, and took a deep breath, opened his mouth wide, ready to scream - then the screen went black.

Rey was horrified and unnerved, and was very glad to have Ben’s arm around her shoulders.

“What the hell?” It was all she could think to say.

“I know, right?” Ben answered with a chuckle. “The title of that one is _Tethered_ ; it’s about…”

“The inevitability of biology, I suppose,” Rey finished. “How we're all bound to our designations, ruled by biology. He’s trying to escape, but he can’t. Eventually his designation will catch up with him.”

“Exactly,” Ben said, giving her a gentle squeeze. “That’s my favorite one. It was the most relatable thing I’d ever seen. I watched it a lot, when I was a teenager.”

Rey looked up at the side of Ben’s mask-covered head, and wished yet again that she could see his face, gauge his expression.

“Did you?”

He turned his face to her, the shiny chrome and dark goggles of his mask blinked at her. “Of course. I still feel that way. I've managed to unbind myself from the societal expectations of being an alpha, by keeping myself apart, but my biology keeps me tethered to it and there isn't really a way to escape that. And besides, I don't really want to."

"Because of the smell thing."

"Exactly. There are things I _like_ about being an alpha, but I still feel like I’m being chased down a hallway. Like it… my designation is tethered to me, and I’m dragging it along. I can only stay so far ahead.”

He was talking about the rut, the loss of control, and Rey understood. He seemed so afraid of it; she was amazed and humbled that he let her in the house, that he was willing to sit with his arm around her. Even when she was a danger to him.

“Do you think you’ll be able to hold it off forever? Do you think you’ll always be running?” _Would you run away from me?_

“I don’t know.” He looked down at his hand, which held the remote control. “Would you like to watch another one?”

“Yes! But give me a moment, please. I need to use the bathroom.”

She scooted out of his embrace and stood, and immediately felt cold. He tucked his legs under so she could fit between him and the coffee table. 

“Bathroom’s the first door on the right, if you don’t want to go all the way to the back. I’m not going anywhere.” He set his stockinged feet up on the table and leaned back; he looked so relaxed and comfortable, it made her feel warm inside.

Rey didn’t feel like being any farther from Ben than she had to, so she chose the closer bathroom and entered it quickly, locking the door behind her out of habit. She tugged off her gloves and unzipped around the middle of the suit, and glanced around the room while she peed. It was a nice room, but not as fancy as the one in ‘her’ room - this one had a bath and shower combined, and the bath didn’t have jets in it. But this was clearly the bathroom that Ben used; there was a toothbrush by the sink, soap and shampoo in the tub, and towels hung up to dry. It was pleasant; it was Ben.

After finishing up Rey zipped herself back up and washed her hands, and then she thought how good it would feel to have a breath of fresh air; just one breath. The air in the mask was musty, and her constant tears made it humid and uncomfortable. A bit of wind on her face would feel nice. There was a window in the wall next to the toilet, so she opened the window all the way, leaned out as far as she could, pulled off her mask, and took a deep breath.

Rey’s senses were immediately overwhelmed by the glorious scent of mountains in a rainstorm, surf on the beach, air that moves and swirls and never stops, thunder and lightning. _Alpha Ben alpha Ben alpha Ben alpha Ben Ben Ben.._. Rey was dimly aware of being on the floor, on her hands and knees, her stomach cramping hard enough to make her cry out. The tile was cool and hard against her hands, against her cheek; she stretched out to lay her belly against the floor, and that helped just a bit with the pain. _The scent_. She had to find the source of the scent. Rolling onto her back, she glanced around and her eyes landed on a laundry hamper; it was tucked behind the door, and she hadn’t seen it when she’d walked in. That was it, she was certain; the source of that most wonderful scent. 

Rey pulled herself along the floor with her hands until she reached the hamper. She was too weak to pull herself up, so instead she pushed her fingers into the spaces between the plastic mesh of the hamper and toppled it over; it fell with a _bang_ , releasing its contents across the bathroom floor. She located it immediately - the scent of that single piece of fabric overwhelmed everything else. Plaid flannel - a shirt. Ben’s shirt, cold and tacky with what _had_ to be his cum. Rey shoved it against her face and immediately felt better, even as a small part of her brain woke up to what exactly was happening.

At the same time Rey was having her realization on the floor of the bathroom, there was a knock on the door, and the doorknob rattled. She'd never been more disappointed and more thankful to have locked a door in her life.

“Rey?” Ben’s voice, although muted through the door and his mask, sounded undeniably _alpha alpha alpha_ and she couldn’t help but respond with a cry.

“Rey?” He called again, his voice now filled with apprehension. “Are you okay?”

Her brain was foggy with lust, and his voice and thoughts of him - his body, his hands, his knot, filling her and holding her to him - didn’t help, but she did her very best to respond calmly.

“You have to leave now, Ben. I found your shirt. I’m in heat, and you have to leave _right now_.”

“Oh fuck,” he moaned, followed by a knock that Rey expected was his head falling against the door. The thought made her smile even as her abdomen cramped up again. Her nipples - her nipples _hurt_. Her entire body was sore. She needed to get out of this stupid suit and get a toy in her soon or she was going to be in a lot of pain. She grasped the zipper under her chin and tugged it down; the cool air on her chest had her feeling better immediately.

“Fuck, fuck!” Ben shouted on the other side of the door. “I forgot about the shirt! You… you have been very distracting today, I wasn't thinking. I’m so sorry.”

Rey laughed through her pain, through her tears. “I fucking love this shirt, Ben. I’m going to keep it; it’ll help me through this, so thanks for that. But you have to leave _right fucking now_ , Ben. Get Chewie and get out, and I’ll see you in a few days. Right?”

He didn’t answer. She could hear his footsteps, running quickly - to the kitchen, she thought - and then he was shuffling around in the hall - boots and coat? - then his voice, soft and insistent - “come on, Chewie,” - and then he was back at the bathroom door.

“Rey? Are you still there?”

She groaned, only then realizing that while he’d been running his errands, she’d abandoned the cum-soaked shirt on her face and her hands had managed to unzip her bottoms, which were now down her thighs, and her hands were working desperately under her panties, to very little effect. _Alpha alpha alpha, alpha will take care of you_ , her body lamented. She started to cry, great sobs that wracked her whole body, and she couldn’t find the strength to answer him.

“Okay, Rey, I hear you. I hate… dammit. I’m leaving now, with Chewie. If you need anything, anything at all, you come out to the barn and get me. Or, I dunno, stand on the deck and scream. I’ll be listening for you. You hear me? I’ll come to cook you dinner later, like you asked.”

He just _kept talking_ and Rey wished that she had the strength to stand up and open the door, to bring him in with her, pull off his mask and his suit, _stupid suppression suit_ , to lie him on the floor and take his knot, _alpha will make you feel so good, so good_. But it was just as well that she didn’t, because that wasn’t what he wanted, and remembering that fact just made her cry harder.

The front door slammed, the sound pulling Rey out of her reverie of misery, and she was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear friend AlbaStarGazer made some beautiful moodboards for the story! Thank you so much, my dear!
> 
>   
> 
> 
> If you like this chapter please leave a comment or kudos, they make me happy and keep me honest xoxo 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage you to check the tags, and note that this is clearly tagged "Submissive Kylo Ren" "Dominant Rey" "Light Dom/sub" and "Light BDSM". I haven't tagged it but there are mentions of rope play, anal play, and spanking in this chapter. If you are squicky about those you may want to give this chapter a pass.
> 
> Okay? Let's go!

Ben hated leaving the house.

Rey was crying on the floor of his bathroom - triggered into heat because of _him_ , because of his stupid fucking cum-covered shirt, that he left in the laundry like an idiot instead of burning in the fire, which he should have done, would have done, had he been thinking.

But he hadn’t been thinking. And now Rey was paying the price.

 _It was going to happen eventually_ , his brain said. _She was due for a heat. It just came a little early, that’s all_.

Ben knew it was true, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

He stomped across the snowy yard, a bag of dog food slung across his shoulder, the pockets of his coat full of granola bars, suppression suit and mask still covering him up, and thought about turning around and going back. Back to Rey. But he didn’t.

* * *

Rey was in hell. She had died and gone to hell, and she was destined to spend the rest of eternity enduring hot, painful cramps on a bathroom floor, her hands working uselessly between her legs while a cum-stained shirt slowly wrapped itself around her head.

It wasn’t _all_ bad, she supposed, another cramp wracking her body as she wriggled to remove herself from the stiff, itchy, horrible suppression suit. At least the shirt smelled like Ben. She concentrated on his scent, soft and natural and exhilarating, and gradually calmed herself down enough to sit up and pull off the rest of her clothes.

She was a mess, and she'd made a mess, her sweat and slick forming a thin layer on the floor on which she slipped as she finished removing her bra and wrangled her underwear the rest of the way down her legs, kicking them across the floor where they came to rest under the toilet. Holding the beloved shirt against her face, she managed to get up on her knees and put herself to tackling the door. It had a twist-lock, which had been easy enough to lock just a few minutes ago, but which she now found dreadfully trying. Eventually she got the door open, managed to stand on her own two feet, and slowly made her way down the hall towards the closed door at the end, the room that was to be her safe haven for the next few days.

Rey breathed in the scent of Ben’s cum-soaked shirt, and shuddered.

At the next door down the hall - the second door on the right - Rey paused. Even over the aroma of the shirt, which was strong, she could smell more of Ben from behind that door. It was his bedroom, it must be, and the scent of storms and mountains and clouds and sea flowed through the cracks around the door and made her knees buckle. It smelled like Ben, and it smelled like sex. He’d had sex in that room, and she wanted to drown herself in the scent of it. He hadn’t given her explicit permission to go in there, which gave her pause, but he’d also said he’d help her if she needed anything. And wasn’t this a need? She would ask for forgiveness later. Instead of continuing to her designated room, she turned the doorknob of this room - it was unlocked - and stepped inside.

* * *

Ben was itchy. It wasn’t his skin, exactly; he didn’t want to scratch himself with his nails, but he felt strange, anxious, off-kilter. And he didn’t know how much of it was honest worry for the plight of his new friend (Could he call her that? He was pretty sure he could call her a friend, after their morning spent together - certainly _wanted_ to.) and how much of it was biology.

Fucking biology.

He set down the bag of dog food next to the cot in the office - it was disheveled from where she’d been sleeping, and she’d found the extra blankets in the cabinet; they were piled around the side, and the indent of her head was still there on the pillow. His stomach flipped; he felt like vomiting and running a mile and punching a wall, all at the same time. Chewie flopped on the floor by his feet and sighed. Ben shrugged out of his coat and threw it on the chair - he was hot, didn’t need it - but on second thought went into a pocket and pulled out a couple of granola bars. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, hours ago - before he even knew Rey existed, my God - and he was certain that part of the stomach churning was due to simple hunger.

As soon as he broke the seal on the first bar, he realized his conundrum: he had to take off his mask in order to eat. But Rey had been in this room for days. He’d been able to scent her from halfway to the house. If he could scent her from all the way out there, how strong would the scent be in here? He was already keyed up from what had happened in the house. Her cries still rang in his ears: ‘ _I fucking love this shirt, Ben. I’m going to keep it._ And the thought of his cum-covered shirt in her hands, on her body, was almost enough to drive him to rut all by itself.

Maybe. He thought. He still wasn’t sure exactly what having a rut felt like, but he couldn’t possibly be far from it.

But he needed to eat. He considered going into the woods. He could walk away, not too far, a mile or two. That would be far enough to be away from her scent.

_The exterior of your suit will smell like her, too. There were gaps at her ankles, and her wrists. You noticed them, didn’t you?_

Fine. There was an old set of his grandfather’s coveralls in here, somewhere. He could change out in the main room of the barn, leave the suppression suit here, walk a couple of miles.

 _You can’t do that_ , another voice replied. His alpha brain and body, this time, not his rational ones. _What if your omega needs you? You said if she needed anything she could come for you. You said you would be listening for her. You need to **stay** , you can’t leave_.

Ben groaned; he couldn't believe he was admitting it, but his alpha self was right. Feeding himself would have to wait. He needed to find some other way to spend his time; something to take his mind off everything else.

The sledgehammer leaning in the corner of the room gave him an excellent idea.

He set the opened granola bar down on the desk, grabbed the long, heavy hammer, and headed out into the barn.

* * *

Stepping into Ben’s bedroom felt like entering a temple.

Like the rest of his house, his bedroom was tidy and well-kept. His bed was made, black comforter pulled tight and smooth across the mattress, black-encased pillows stacked neatly across its head. Books were aligned neatly on the wooden bookshelf that was built into the wall across from the foot of the bed. Rey ran her finger along the spines and found books about film and art, poetry and novels, science and gardening. There was a floating shelf over the bed, upon which rested an oddly elegant collection of stones, sticks, and small wasp’s nest in a glass jar. A video camera sat on a tripod, between the bookshelf and the window. The whole room, like the hallway, was carpeted in a thick, rich grey that was soft against her bare feet. As she took it all in, rivulets of slick dripped down her legs and soaked in around her feet, resulting in dark splotches on the floor. Rey was torn between feeling guilty about making a mess, and pride that she was marking his space as her own. That was definitely biology, but she didn't care so much anymore.

She made a circuit around the room, returned to the door, and closed it.

The room smelled like a storm at sea, and standing in it made her feel alive. Her entire body was tingling, awake, waiting. The room was all Ben, and she wanted more of him.

The bed drew her in. His scent was strongest there. He’d slept there, last night, and he’d pleasured himself there, too, she could tell. It was a different kind of scent from the cum on the shirt, which she’d lowered from her face but still held loosely in her hand, like a child’s security blanket. He’d laid there naked, sweated into the bedcover, rubbed his scent glands against the pillows as he writhed in self-propelled ecstasy. She could picture him there, long and muscular and unclothed, his hair a tangled cloud, his left hand gripping the comforter, white-knuckled, while his other grasped his cock tightly. His hips would thrust up into his hand, his entire lower body shiny with sweat and lube and cum; the ridge of skin around the base of his cock would be red and hot, ready to expand and hold her to him. She just had to be there with him.

But he _wasn’t_ there, he was in the barn, and the tears returned as she laid herself on the bed and buried her face in the cool, aromatic softness of his pillows. They smelled like him - perfect - and she wanted her scent there, too. She wanted them together. So she pressed her own scent glands against the pillows and tugged the comforter between her legs as she wailed, rubbing it against her heated core in search of the relief she craved.

* * *

Ben hadn't touched his truck in twelve years, not since he drove it across the country and into the barn for good. And he never planned to drive it again - which was just as well since he was a little more than halfway into utterly destroying it with the sledgehammer.

Despite his lack of suppressants, Ben very rarely had to deal with typical alpha aggression, primarily because there simply weren't other people around to set him off. He would occasionally catch a scent in his monthly deliveries - an ungloved alpha touched some soup cans here, an omega breathed on some produce there - but those hints of scent were easy enough to ignore. Early in his residency he’d invited Poe to bring his alpha wife, Phasma, up with him for a delivery, and to stay for a few days after. He’d been lonely, and thought it might be nice to have a new friend. It had been a disaster; even on suppressants her scent was overwhelming and Ben had spent the entire visit fighting his body’s inclination to _be the alpha_. He hadn’t disliked her, but he hadn’t invited her back, and Poe hadn't asked. He’d never even considered inviting anyone else to visit. He could stand Poe for a few days, as long as he didn’t reek of his wife (which, after that visit, he never did).

Ben’s shoulders ached as he lifted the sledgehammer and threw it against the side of the cab again, leaving it with another dent. It was remarkably unsatisfying but he did it anyway, because he couldn't think of anything else to do. The only thing he really wanted to do was run back to the house and take care of Rey, but she hadn't asked him to and he wasn't brave enough to go back and ask if she wanted him there. He was terrified that she would say no, and also terrified that she would say yes.

After several more swings he had to stop; he was having trouble physically lifting the hammer, and his mask was becoming so moist from his breath that the inside of the goggles were fogging up. He was also hot, burning hot, and his scent and mating glands had begun to itch so strongly it was painful. So he dropped the sledgehammer and took himself outside, to the edge of the forest, where he had to stop himself from throwing himself into the snow to cool his body down.

He thought about Rey; the way she'd felt sitting next to him on the sofa, how she'd instantly understood Amidala's film and his own feelings connected to it. He wondered if she'd be willing to watch more movies with him when her heat was over. He wondered if she might stay, if only for a few days. Just a few days.

* * *

She'd succeeded in rubbing her own scent all over Ben's bed. The scent glands on her neck were itching and hot, and it felt wonderful to stroke them against the pillows, and to grind her cunt against the bedclothes, spreading her slick over everything. She’d managed to have several orgasms, though they had been unsatisfying without a knot, but she was pleased with how her scent combined with Ben's in the pile of fabric, and her brain was finally clearing enough that she was considering going to the other room for her bag. Her favorite knotting dildo was in it, and that would bring her more satisfaction than merely rubbing herself off on the bed. She was upright and had taken two steps towards the door to the hallway, when a powerful scent caught her attention.

It was still Ben, only more concentrated, unadulterated, and it was coming from under his bed. She hadn't noticed it before only because the rest of the room smelled so strongly of him, but as her scent had by now combined with his, this other, stronger, aroma was very obvious and distinct.

She wanted it, so she went looking. She felt a tinge of guilt digging around under the bed, as she’d felt when she first decided to enter the room despite not having permission to do so, but she thought he meant it when he said he would help her if she needed anything. And she knew she needed this.

Rey finally found it: It was a box. Not a cardboard box, but a wooden box, like a small, shallow trunk. She tugged it out from under the bed by its handle, lifted the lid with shaking hands, and gasped as she took in the contents.

The box was full of treasure. Not jewels, or gold, but items even more valuable to Rey at this moment. The space inside was divided into two sections. The section on the left held a collection of sex toys - vibrators and strange-looking dildos, that she decided after a moment were probably - if Ben was using them on himself - designed for anal use. One of them had an inflatable knot, and she lifted it out carefully; that was the one she wanted to try first. It had been inside his body; he’d washed it, but she could smell him on it nevertheless. His familiar scent, but darker, deeper. It made her stomach cramp and she had to stop to take several shallow breaths before she could move on to examine the rest of the contents of the box.

The other section was filled with skeins of rope. Rey’d had alphas want to tie her up before, and one had even tried when she was in the throes of heat - it hadn’t gone well for him - and at first her heart sank. Would Ben want to tie her up? But then she saw the book, nestled in with the ropes, and a glimpse at the title made her heart sing: _The Art of Self-Bondage_. Ben liked to tie himself up.

 _Ben liked to tie himself up_.

Rey returned to the vision of him she’d made for herself earlier, but augmented it. Instead of gripping the comforter, his wrists had been tied to the headboard. His ankles, likewise, had been strapped down, his body spread-eagle across the bed. One hand remained free, and he used it to stroke his cock, to squeeze its knot, to tug its head. She could imagine the noises he had made, animalistic and pure. Tears ran down her face and slick down her thighs as she thought about this; she wanted it. She wanted to be there, to watch him, to help. To climb on him and hold his free hand and make him beg her to let him knot her.

As she imagined this her hands moved of their own accord, and she was shocked when she had an orgasm accompanied by the distinctive grip of a knot. While she was imagining Ben she’d managed to impale herself on his knotting dildo and inflate it without even realizing she was doing it. It wasn’t the best shape for her needs, and wasn’t nearly big enough - not as large as his cock would be - but it was in her, and it gripped her, and it felt good. It felt better than any alpha or any other toy she'd had; in fact Rey was having the best orgasm of her life, by herself with a knotting dildo that wasn’t even built for a vagina, and she knew why - it was because of Ben.

That said, Rey didn’t love the dildo, although she liked it. What she liked most was the fact that it was Ben’s and that Ben had come when it had been inside his body. As she waited for her own body to recover to the point where she could have another orgasm, she thought about Ben using that dildo. She couldn’t figure out exactly how he would do it, if he tied himself up, but she could imagine doing it to him. Could she use it on him, at the same time he knotted her? Maybe, she thought - if he was on his back, and his legs were tied so the knees were up by his chest; if she was on top, facing him, and she could reach far enough behind her to push it in… or she could face away from him? They could experiment. He might like that. It might be fun.

She had another orgasm as she considered the logistics. And then she had another. To her surprise, it turned out that Rey had a vivid imagination when it came to thinking up ways that she might tie down Ben and make him beg to knot her while she used the toy to knot him, too. And all her fantasies ended in a knot; his knot, holding her to him, his cum filling her up, leaking out so she would have to rub it on her skin, in her hair, lick it off him as he cried out her name and begged her again and again, ‘ _please omega, Rey, please let me knot you, let me fill you with cum, please please please please please_.’

* * *

Ben stood outside the barn, losing track of time. He thought about Rey, although he tried not to think about her naked, in heat, her slick running down her legs, standing over him while he begged her to take his knot.

All right, he _did_ think these things, but he thought about other things too. He thought about her face - the glimpse he’d caught of her through the window on the kitchen door. Sunkissed skin with freckles across her nose; wisps of chestnut hair, cut to just over her ears, hanging in her eyes; those eyes, wide and hazel, a combination of mossy green and bark brown that reminded him of the woods; and her mouth, beautiful and wide and made for kissing. Ben wanted to kiss that mouth, to see it on his body, and to put his own mouth on her body, too. He wondered if her mouth would taste as sweet as she smelled, and tried not to wonder if her slick would taste sweet, too.

Ben thought about how Rey had watched him make the flower out of folded paper. He hadn’t been able to see her face because it was covered by her mask, but he could tell she was paying attention. It felt good to have someone pay attention to him, and he wanted to pay attention to her, too. Maybe she could teach him something. Something with computers? He could teach her origami, and she could teach him computers or… well, she could teach him whatever she’d like. He wanted to learn whatever he could from her.

Ben’s stomach rumbled and he ignored it.

The wind gusted and a few chunks of snow fell off the pine branches with soft _plops_. It was beginning to look grey again, the sky was turning to slate and Ben could smell a change in the air, too. Moisture, and ozone, and cold. Perhaps more snow was coming. That would be a pain, but at least Rey was safe and warm in the house. He would check the fire when he went back up to cook dinner in a couple of hours, and the central heating would keep her comfortable. She'd be fine; they would both be fine. They could make it through the storm.

* * *

Hours later - it felt like hours to her anyway - Rey sat up from where she’d been lying on the carpet and turned her attention back to the box. She’d had more orgasms than she could count, and her continuously dripping cunt had created quite a damp spot around her, her scent continuing to meld with Ben’s and leaving her in a fog of sweet rain and pine trees - and something new that she didn’t have words to describe, but it was uniquely _them_. The ground squished unpleasantly under her knees as she peeked back into the box. There were more toys, but the rest of them were definitely made for male alphas and not for her - there was a harsh-looking knot keeper that looked like it would be particularly painful, but she found that she wanted to see Ben use it anyway. Did he like pain? Some of the alphas Rey had known had liked causing pain, but none of them wanted to receive it. She wondered if she could hurt Ben, if he asked her to - if he begged her.

Rey came again on the knotted dildo then, which was by this time so thoroughly sopping wet that it threatened to slip out even as she pumped the knot as large as it could go. While she waited for it to deflate she poked into the collection of ropes to find the book again. It had slipped amongst the tightly-wound skeins, and as Rey picked it out she noticed that there was something else beneath, tucked down under the layer of ropes. It was a computer tablet, and she temporarily forgot the book and pulled out the tablet instead with sticky fingers, apologizing to Ben as she did.

She powered it on, and was pleased to find that it was fully charged and was not password protected. Aside from the defaults, the tablet only had one other app - a video app. Rey had no doubts what she would find in that app, and she might have felt more guilty if she hadn’t already been almost overwhelmed with lust and curiosity. She had seen his toys, and had used one, and had seen his ropes. Now she wanted to see his porn. What kind of porn would her Ben - lonely, thoughtful, classic-film loving Ben - watch when he ties himself up and masturbates?

The app opened to a gallery of thumbnails with a variety of titles that were organized into several groups. There were titles Rey would expect to see in any alpha’s library: “Lusty Omega Whores,” “Teen Alpha’s First Rut,” “Omega Borealis,” “Omega Cumsluts vol. 12”. Then there were the knotting titles: “She’s Knot Ready,” “Knot Me Down,” “To Be Or Knot To Be.”

There were a few slick-focused titles, which Rey had heard existed, but hadn’t seen before; the alphas she’d known in the past hadn’t been that into omega slick: “Lick That Slick,” “Slick You Up, Daddy” and “Sweet, Sweet Slick.” These thumbnails featured wet lips, wet gloves, wet clothes; these were appealing to her. There were two titles that suggested alphas with alphas: “Alpha 2” and “Alpha Alpha Alpha” - a niche, but not unheard of, and not appealing to Rey at all. Finally there were the titles Rey was hoping to see, based on the presence of Ben’s toy collection, and his ropes: the submissive alpha titles. “Omegas in Charge,” “Alpha Bound,” “Little Alpha Sluts,” and “Tying Up Daddy.” Those were subversive, and highly unusual - almost unheard of, in Rey’s experience. She’d known an alpha once who made fun of them, said unkind things about alphas who would dare debase themselves like that, but she never had the nerve to ask if he had some she could watch.

Now was her chance. She clicked on “Tying Up Daddy,” just to see.

What it was, was a very large, very masculine alpha with a huge erection and a very red knot, trussed up and tossed on a large bed, surrounded by three omegas - two female and one male. They were small, cute, smooth - typical porn omegas. Rey tried not to compare herself to them, and instead concentrated on the action, such as it was. As she watched them they teased the alpha, called him “daddy” (even though he didn’t seem to be much older than they were) and rubbed themselves against him as he shouted and cried and begged them to take his knot.

One of the women was holding a riding crop, and at one point they all rolled the alpha onto his front and she used it to spank him several times on his buttocks. He yelled and writhed and his bottom turned more and more red as the omegas laughed, and Rey had to stop the movie because she was enjoying it just a little bit too much. Ben didn’t have anything for hitting in his box of tricks. Would he like it if she spanked him? Spanked his butt? She thought she might like to do it to him, if he wanted her to.

She stopped the movie before any of the omegas gave in and took the alpha’s knot, although she supposed eventually one of them would. They all seemed to be having fun, and she had another orgasm as she thought about doing something similar with Ben.

Rey scrolled down through the films, and was amused to find a handful of classics there, too. Past those were several - perhaps a dozen - that didn’t have thumbnails, and which seemed to have been left with the file names that the camera assigned to them when they were recorded: “DSC_0003” and “DSC_0024” and “DSC_0058”. As she pressed her finger against the blank icon of the first one in the list, she was intensely aware of the video camera on the tripod, in the corner by the window. Her body shook as the video started to play, and she wiped the tears off her face as she whispered an apology to Ben.

It was Ben in the video; as she knew it would be. The footage hadn’t been edited; it started focused on the bed, stripped to the bottom sheet and empty aside from a pillow, a selection of toys, and a few skeins of rope. Ben’s face, familiar from the glance she’d had of him though the window that morning, appeared as he stepped around from behind the camera. He paused to look directly into the camera lens, long hair pulled back from his face in a ponytail, his soulful brown eyes behind a pair of glasses with thick black rims, his expression serious - it felt like he was staring right into her soul - and then made his way to the bed. He was wearing grey sweatpants, which slightly disappointed Rey, but on the other hand kept her from being too distracted from what he was doing. He hummed as he worked, referring to the same book she recognized from the box as he weaved the ropes through the headboard in such a way that it left out two long loops and another length of rope that reached halfway down the bed. When he was done he stood back and smiled, a satisfied sort of smile, and then set his glasses on the bedside table and let down his hair.

As he removed his sweatpants and climbed onto the bed, Rey's mouth went dry. She'd known that Ben's cock would be impressive, but it was one thing to know it and a whole other thing to see it. Fresh slick drenched her thighs; she wanted his knot more than she'd ever wanted a thing in her life. It was perfect, just like him. And she was absolutely certain that it wasn't just biology; biology had never felt like this.

She watched, entranced, as he lay on his back in the middle of the bed and passed his legs through the loops of rope, then pulled the length, which functioned as a pulley, tugging his knees up towards his shoulders and giving her an excellent view of his backside, almost exactly as she had imagined him in her fantasy just minutes before.

Once he seemed satisfied with his position he selected one of the toys and what Rey recognized after a moment was a bottle of lube. Her cheeks burned; she considered turning it off. This was private, not for her, and he might be angry with her for looking at it. Her stomach churned at the thought of Ben, angry, at her. But she didn't turn it off.

Ben was talking, softly, but loud enough to reach the camera microphone.

"Omega, please," he moaned, and Rey came again on the dildo. She sort of … fell into an orgasm, and then the orgasm didn't really stop. It just kept rolling along gently as she watched Ben slip the toy - it was an anal plug - into his hole and whine. She inflated the dildo’s knot as much as she could, but it just wasn’t enough.

"Omega," Ben cried out, shaking his head from side-to-side so his hair flew messily around him on the bed. "Please, omega, take my knot. Give me your slick, take my cum. It's yours, all for you, please please _please_." His speech ended with a plaintive wail.

Rey was still in the midst of her orgasm; her hips rolled beneath her like a ship on the sea. There were spots around the edges of her eyes, but she never wanted it to stop. She couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

After a moment of play-struggling against the ropes, Ben reached beside him for another toy; it was a knot keeper. This one looked soft and malleable, not like the hard one she'd noticed in the box. It would be stiff enough to press against his knot but not so hard it would keep it from expanding naturally, and Rey was briefly shattered when she realized it would prevent her from actually seeing Ben’s knot, but she wouldn’t dwell on that. He slipped it down to the base of his cock, and Rey had to pause the video. She breathed deeply five or six times, before starting the video again.

Ben gripped his hand around his shaft, just under the head of his cock, which was dark and purple and made Rey’s mouth water as she took in the sight of it. Even though his cock was thick and girthy, his hand was large enough that it was able to wrap around it completely. When he slowly pulled his hand up, Rey realized that he was uncut; his foreskin came up and enveloped the tip of him, and then he pulled it down again, exposing the purple head. He did it again, and again, speeding up stroke by stroke until his hips lifted from the bed, fucking into his hand, using the ropes around his knees as leverage, and he was crying and moaning and still begging for his omega to take his knot, still unseen beneath the knot keeper.

“Spank me, omega,” he cried, thrusting into his hand. “Spank me hard!” Rey thought of the film, the omega with the riding crop, and she thought again that she might like to do it, spank Ben and make him cry while he begs to knot her. She might like that very much.

Rey hadn’t stopped crying, but she cried harder now, because she couldn't be there to help Ben, because he needed an omega to spank him, to take his knot, to cover him with slick and take all his cum, and she wanted to be that omega. She was still having her own orgasm on a dildo that had been inside him and it was almost too much. And then in the video he stuttered, and shouted, and cum shot out of his cock so vigorously that it landed on his chin and his chest and doused his stomach. There was a lot of cum, white and thick and Rey just knew that it was hot, too. She knew exactly how it would smell, because she’d smelled it on Ben’s shirt - the shirt that was now up on the bed, out of her reach, and she cried for its loss. She wanted to rub herself with that cum, to eat it and drink it up, to fill herself with it while his cock and knot filled her up and satisfied her the way she knew that only Ben could do.

Rey was still coming; her orgasm continued as she watched Ben rub his cum onto his chest, lift a finger to his mouth, and groan as he sucked it off.

Finally she came yet again, a blindingly powerful sensation on top of her already ongoing orgasm, and it went on for quite a while. By the time the orgasm was over the video had ended, and she was utterly exhausted. She was eventually able to pull out the dildo, though her body seemed loathe to give it up. She set the tablet back in the box, crawled up into the bed, found Ben's shirt - still soothingly reminiscent of his scent - and was fast asleep within moments.

* * *

Ben was exhausted, physically and emotionally. He was worried about Rey, and his muscles were sore from the sledgehammering, which in hindsight hadn’t been the best idea after all. He was hungry, but was terrified of taking off the mask to eat. And now, after standing outside in the snow for who knows how long, he was freezing.

He went back into the barn office and turned on the kerosene heater, which helped with his body temperature, and settled himself on the cot. Chewie woke up just long enough to hop up with him and immediately fell back to sleep.

Knowing that Rey had slept on that cot, that her scent permeated the blankets, helped to calm him, even though he couldn’t actually smell her, and he dug himself further in. His stomach rumbled again, accompanied by a tinge of nausea. He pulled his watch out of his pocket, where he’d tucked it since it couldn’t fit around the wrist of the suit, and checked the time. He’d need to head up to the house soon to cook Rey her dinner. She’d told him that he’d be cooking for himself, too, and his mouth watered at the thought of a steak, but he still had no idea how he’d actually eat it out in the barn. He couldn't tell her that, though, because he knew that it would upset her, that she would insist that he take it out into the woods, but he didn’t want to be away from her, so he would either have to tell her _no_ and make her sad or say _yes_ and make himself a liar. He didn’t want to do either of those things.

Ben rolled his shoulders and tried to reach his arms around his neck to give himself a bit of a massage, but the suit restricted his movements. Groaning, he laid back on the cot and wrapped Rey’s former blankets around his body until they tightly gripped him instead. He couldn’t eat, and he couldn’t smell, but he might be able to nap, if only for a little bit, so he closed his eyes and floated into sleep wrapped in her scent.

* * *

When Rey awoke the light outside was dim, and she had so thoroughly lost track of time she didn’t know if the sun was setting or rising. She was chilly; the slick she'd rubbed into the sheets earlier had dried into a cold and tacky mess, and the combined scent of Ben and herself, which had managed to be both sweet and comforting, yet heady and untamed in a way that exhilarated her, had faded. Her own scent was beginning to overwhelm Ben's and her body rebelled at that realization; she doubled over with a cramp and decided that it was time to go in search of food. If it was morning, maybe Ben had come and gone and there was a steak waiting for her in the fridge.

She was hot, so very hot, and the thought of anything against her skin except his soft sheets made her cringe, so she padded out into the hallway naked. She didn't call out; it was selfish, but if Ben was there, there was a big part of her that wanted him to see her like this - hot and wrecked and coated in slick. He had porn about slick, and had cried out for slick in his own video; maybe he'd like hers. Maybe he would lick it off of her, if she asked very nicely, or if she tied him down and made him do it. She was disappointed but also relieved when it was clear that he wasn't there. Her relief was followed by tears, because he wasn't there to take care of her, and she needed him.

No, that wasn't exactly right. She didn't _need_ him; she was fully capable of taking care of herself. She _wanted_ him, with a hot desire that filled her to overflowing. And she didn’t just want his knot, or his cum - she wanted _Ben_. He was funny, and intelligent, sweet and thoughtful, and she liked him a lot. If he never touched her naked body she would still want him as a friend.

Thinking about friends made her think about Finn, who was probably sitting by his phone in Vancouver, worried sick about her. She would call him, she needed to let him know her heat had started, but first she would fortify herself with something to eat.

There were some cans of soup on the kitchen counter, along with a box of crackers, but heating soup required effort that she just didn't have. So instead she checked the fridge and came out with a wrinkled carrot and the very last bit of a hunk of cheese. She ate it all, along with a few crackers, barely tasting it but feeling slightly more alert when she was done.

The satellite phone beeped as she dialed Finn’s number, being careful to start with the country code as she had done earlier, as Ben had instructed. Finn answered halfway through the first ring.

“Rey!” He shouted into her ear, and the sound of his voice alone was enough to bring her to tears.

“Hey baby,” his voice softened when he heard her sob. “What’s wrong? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

The thought of Ben hurting her made her laugh. “No, Finn, not at all. But I went into heat, I don’t know… hours ago. Not long after we talked before. And it’s just… it’s a lot, Finn. This is a difficult heat.”

Finn was silent for a moment before he asked the question. “Your guy? The alpha? Is he with you?”

“His name is Ben, and no. He’s out in the barn.”

There was a soft sigh on the other end of the line.

“Rey.”

“Finn.”

“Rey.” Another sigh. “Are you okay?”

It was impossible for her to lie to her best friend.

“No,” she sobbed. “It hurts. It’s…” she thought about Ben, and the toys, and the ropes, and the recording that Ben had made of himself, tied to the bed and begging. Being with a submissive alpha wasn’t really something she’d considered before but she enjoyed thinking about it now and she wanted to do it with Ben and there was no way she could tell Finn. But she could admit the basics: “I want him, Finn. I want him. But he doesn’t want me.”

“Don’t be silly,” he admonished her fondly. “Tell me how you know he doesn’t want you.”

“I mean,” she explained, “he’s not here. He’s in the barn.”

“Okay. Did you ask him to stay with you, when your heat started? Or did you tell him to go to the barn?”

Rey didn’t answer, and Finn chuckled. “Oh, baby. You’re very silly, you know.”

“I did tell him to go to the barn,” she admitted, “but he’s never had a rut. And he doesn’t _want_ to have a rut. Insisting that he leave me here was also me trying to help him. Saving him. And besides, he _went_. He could have stayed.”

“Nah, that just means he respects you, respects what you want. And that’s good, as long as you’re being honest with him. Right?”

She didn’t answer.

“Rey, what did you guys do, after we spoke earlier?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Well, we talked. He showed me how to do some origami. We, uh, watched a film?”

“A film. One of your classic ones? He’s a film guy?”

“Uh, yeah. He likes the Omega Noir series too. His grandparents were friends with Mon Mothma. The director?”

“Rey,” Finn sounded slightly exasperated; she could imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose. “If this guy is as interested in film as you are, he might be perfect for you. I’m serious. You need to go get him.”

“But he doesn’t want to rut!”

“Then he doesn’t have to!” Finn shouted, but after a moment he continued more calmly. “Do you remember the heat I helped you though a couple of years ago?”

Rey laughed through her tears. “Of course. It sucked, even though I was fully prepared to do it again this time.”

“I know it was frustrating for you, and you wore me out so bad I had to take a whole week off work after, but it was still fun. Right?”

“It was fun.” She wasn’t lying. The sex had been disappointing, the orgasms so unsatisfying she’d spent much of the time crying, but they’d talked about so many things, read to each other, played games, watched movies, and he'd simply been there for her when she needed him. It had been time spent with her best friend, and that had made it tolerable.

“So, go out to the barn and ask if he’d be willing to come hang out with you in his suppression suit. No rut. It’ll be frustrating, probably for both of you, but it’ll be time spent getting to know him better, and at least you won’t be alone.”

Rey considered it. She thought about what it would be like to go to the barn and ask Ben to hang out with her in the house while she works herself through her heat. It didn’t take her very long to come to a conclusion.

“Finn,” she said seriously. “That is probably the silliest idea I have ever heard in my entire life. It is utterly ridiculous. He’s an alpha, I’m an omega. It simply would not work.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” she could practically hear his grin. “One more question. When he left, did he say anything about, I don’t know, being willing to help you? Anything like that?”

“He did,” Rey admitted. “He said that if there was anything I need I should come out and get him. But Finn,” she insisted, “I don’t _need_ him. I can do this by myself.”

“You want him, though, right? And maybe in this case, wanting him is enough. At least give him the opportunity to make a choice. Please? I just… I hate thinking about you being alone right now. Do it for me?”

She agreed to think about it, and they hung up the phone not long after.

* * *

Ben was asleep and dreaming. He _felt_ awake, but he must be dreaming because Rey was there. She looked as she had up at the house, dressed in the tan suppression suit that he had inherited from his grandmother, covered from the top of her feet down to her ankles, her face blank and impersonal behind fabric and dark goggles. Ben blinked his eyes, stared at her through the goggles of his own mask, flexed his hands - encased in the black leather gloves of his own suppression suit - and pushed himself up onto his elbows.

He wasn’t asleep, and he wasn’t dreaming. He was awake, in the barn, and Rey was standing in the door of the office.

"Be with me...please," she managed to cry out, before she slumped against the doorframe, placed her hand against her stomach, and groaned. The sound sent a spike of panic through his heart, and before he could even think about it she was in his arms, cradled like a baby, or like a bride.

Rey was warm and in his arms and she’d come all the way out to him, she _needed him_ , and he was going to take care of her. He’d been an idiot to leave her alone in the house in the first place, but he could make it up to her. She’d need to be fed, and she’d need to be fucked, and she’d need to be knotted, and he was fully prepared to do all of that for her, if that’s what she needed, if it's what she wanted.

“Is that so?” Rey drawled from her place in his arms, head against his shoulder and fingers on his chest but making their way slowly up towards his neck. They were outside - halfway to the house already, stomping through the snow with Chewie hopping happily alongside - but Ben had no memory of leaving the barn, or of speaking.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Mmm-hm,” she answered, her fingertips pressing against his neck, over where the fabric covered his scent gland. “You don’t have to, though, if you don’t want to. You can stay in your suit, we can watch movies, I know you don’t want to rut, so…”

“Yes,” he interrupted her, sounding more gruff than he meant to.

“Yes?” She repeated, pressing her fingertips against his neck again.

“Yes. I know that… we could be together. Without rut, or heat, or… yeah. I want to watch movies with you, and I want you to teach me computer stuff, too. And maybe later? We can do that? But right now I want to. I want to… uh, go into rut with you. I want to take care of you. I want to knot you. I don’t know how, but I want to… oh, fuck.” His face was so hot, and his cock was so hard. He couldn’t believe he had enough blood in his body to fill both places at once, but apparently he did.

Rey hummed and wrapped her arm around his neck in a hug, pressing herself closer to him as a few heavy white flakes fell onto her goggles and melted. Ben wished he could see her eyes, see her face.

"I know what you want," she said dreamily, her voice quiet and slightly sing-song. “You want to knot me. You want to fill me with your cu...”

He interrupted her. "Hush, too much," and she silenced herself. She didn't laugh, and he adored her for that. He gripped her harder, walked a little faster. They were almost to the porch. She pressed her fingers against his neck again, and he moaned.

"I do know what you want, though,” she whispered again, but not like she was teasing. "I know exactly what you want, _Alpha_." She said it as though she was speaking the truth. Could she know? Could she?

Ben’s brain went blank before he could figure out how he was going to get the front door of the house open with Rey in his arms. While he stood, frozen, wondering how to respond and afraid to ask her about it, she reached out her own hand and pushed the door open.

“I found your stash,” she murmured. “I went into your room…it smelled so good...used your toys and watched your movies...movies of you.”

Ben was going to die. He stood in the cold doorway, humiliation burning in his chest, snowflakes flurrying around them, this perfect woman in his arms and now she knew his secrets and she was going to make fun of him, he just knew she was going to, and he couldn’t take it, he couldn’t…

“I love it,” she said, and she sounded sincere, and he could breathe again. He could move, and he took a step inside.

“You do?”

“I do,” she affirmed, with a vigorous nod of her head. “I want to do all that, with you. I want _you_. Can we? Please? Please, _Alpha_?”

Ben growled, like an animal, and kicked the door closed behind him.

“Yes,” he answered. “Yes, _Omega_. Yes.”

“Good,” she moaned. “Now get me out of this suit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you AlbaStarGazer for the beautiful moodboard!
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Also as a bonus: relevant gif.
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are knots, and also knots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are so sorry you had to wait ... almost a month for this update. This was a hard slog and I (leoba) was working on some other things in the meantime (do check out my works list if you're curious; I mostly write Finnreylo and my current big WIP is a Crimson Peak AU so ymmv, but no harm in mentioning it here). flypaper_brain is co-author of this chapter because she contributed SO MUCH, her knowledge and love of ABO really made this chapter much better than it would have been if I (leoba) had written it on my own. So be sure to drop some love for her in your comments.
> 
> If you are super into breeding kink and invested in breeding stuff as part of your ABO experience, you may wish to check out the endnote before you read this chapter.
> 
> Thank you AlbaStarGazer for the moodboard!!!
> 
> Also a final reminder that there is BDSM and rope play and sub!Ben/dom!Rey in the tags! Also new tags Praise Kink and Come Eating, just to keep the whole thing on-brand.

The first thing Rey needed Ben to do was to help her get out of the suit. It was hot and itchy and made her sore, so sore all over. He was strong and large, he carried her like she weighed nothing, and she knew that she wasn’t a small woman; she loved how he made her feel. Like she was important; like he cared about her. But even though he was gentle, the suit hurt.

The second thing Rey needed was Ben’s knot.

Ben carried her into the living room and set her on one of the sofas, laid her out on her back.

“Is this fine?” He asked, his voice soft and breathy even through the mask.

“Why are we in the living room?” she asked, confused, lifting her head up to glance around.

“I need to feed you,” he answered. “It’s time for dinner. You’ve been, uh, working for hours. You need sustenance. I promised to take care of you, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“Yeah,” she said, “but…” and she reached for her own mask, doing her best to undo the fastenings so she could remove it. Ben realized what she was doing fairly quickly, and very soon with his assistance the mask was on the floor and she was breathing Ben again. She closed her eyes and allowed the tears to flow. She was safe; her alpha would take care of her.

“ _My Alpha_ ,” she breathed, and opened her eyes again to find the dark goggles of Ben’s mask gazing down at her.

“Your Alpha,” he repeated. “All yours. And you are my Omega?” He said it as though he were asking her a question, and it was such a dear thing it made her laugh.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Now _please_ , Ben, pick me back up and carry me to the bedroom.”

“No,” he said, uncertainly. “Food first.”

“ _Yes_ ,” she said assuredly. “Knot first. Food later.”

He gazed down at her, and even through the fabric of the suit tight against his throat she could see him swallow.

“Okay, I will,” he said. “I will do this for you, Rey. I will give you my knot.”

He was so sweet and uncertain, and so _alpha_ at the same time, her heart soared. It soared even more when he said, “You’re very beautiful, you know.”

Her cheeks heated and she shifted her head so she wasn’t looking directly at him, but he took her chin between his gloved fingers and encouraged her face back to his.

“You,” he said again, “are very beautiful. You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen in my life, and I am going to carry you into my bedroom, take your clothes off, and knot you. Right now.”

There was a tone in his voice that was familiar; other alphas had used it with her, although no one had ever used it to tell Rey to her face that she was beautiful, let alone the most beautiful person they had ever seen. But his voice told her that he was telling the truth, and she believed him.

He did exactly what he said he would do; he picked her up and carried her back to his bedroom. He didn’t even seem to notice the mess she’d left; his box of treasure was still open on the floor, the tablet with her grubby fingerprints on it laid on top of the toys; the damp carpet; and the wreck that was his bed. He simply walked in and laid her down in the middle of it.

* * *

Rey had left a mess in his bedroom, which would have seriously annoyed Ben in any other situation, but not only did he not care, he kind of liked it. In fact, he loved it. She’d gotten her slick all over everything, which meant his room would smell like her now. Like both of them. She’d gone through his things, watched the videos he’d made of himself fantasizing about submitting to an omega _and she’d loved it_. She said she did, and she seemed to be telling the truth; he could hardly believe his luck. Never in a million years did Ben Solo think that he would meet an omega who would suit him so well.

There was no time to waste thinking, though - she needed him, and he was going to prove himself to her now. Reverently, but not too slowly, Ben first unzipped around the middle of the suit, then he unfastened the top and helped Rey pull her arms out of the sleeves. He whispered to her as he delicately removed the various pieces of clothing. 

“Is this all right? I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“No,” she whispered back to him through her tears. “You’re not hurting me.”

“Good.” He pulled her second arm out through the sleeve, as gently as he could, and laid her shoulder back down on the mattress. “I never want to hurt you.”

She sobbed at that - she hadn’t really stopped crying since the moment she’d come to him in the barn, but it didn’t take him long to understand that it was simply her way of expressing emotions. If she told he she wasn’t hurting, he would believe her, even though her tears made him want to hold her close and never let her go. This wasn’t the time; she wanted the suit off, he was going to get it off for her.

Finally he pulled the bottoms down her legs and off. She hadn’t put her underwear back on before she’d put the suit on, and the bottoms were soaked on the inside. 

“Look at this,” Ben said, pushing the crotch of the bottoms out to display the wet fabric inside. “You’re so wet.” He ran his gloved fingers over the fabric; they came away shining. He wished he wasn’t wearing the fucking mask; he wished he could smell her.

“Look at this,” Rey replied, and spread her legs, placing her hands on her thighs to push herself open. “I’m so wet.”

Ben thought he was going to choke, and dropped the bottoms on the ground to give his full attention to the pink and shining apex of her thighs. 

“You can touch me,” Rey said, lifting her hips slightly, “if you want.”

Ben came, untouched, right in his suit. He couldn’t help it, just the sight of Rey on her back, slick all over her hands and thighs, the expression on her face - debauched but somehow innocent at the same time - it was overwhelming and his body had no other way to respond. Rey looked positively delighted. 

“I want you to make that sound again,” she whispered, pushing the two middle fingers of her left hand into her sopping cunt. “Make it in my ear, while you knot me.” 

Ben had no idea how to respond to that, so he didn’t. Instead, he pulled off his gloves.

He didn’t touch her, though. Instead he stood up and looked down at her. She was so beautiful, so wet and willing, and she stared back up at him, her eyes raking over him from his thighs up to the top of his head, pausing to stare at the bulge of his cock, hard and obvious under the stiff fabric of his suppression suit. He didn’t feel very suppressed now, though. He felt enormous, and he felt aroused. He wanted Rey more than he’d wanted anything else before in his life.

Rey’s hands slipped down between her legs, and with the tips of her fingers she gathered the slick that had been collecting there. He could see it, seeping from her body and dripping down her lips and into her crack, and the streaks from where it had dripped down her thighs. It had made a huge mess in the legs of her suit. She rubbed her hands in it, making a slippery mess of it with her palms, and rubbed it up her thighs, a slick spread all the way to her knees.

He choked again, but somehow managed not to have another orgasm.

“Don’t you want to touch it, Ben?” Rey murmured, staring straight at him. He knew she couldn’t see his face, but it felt as though she was gazing right into the center of his soul. “Feel my slick against your skin?”

“I do,” he said, “yes.”

“Then take off your suit and touch me.” 

* * *

Her voice sounded harsh in her own head. She was getting wetter and wetter by the moment, she was going to start whining soon and she really, really didn’t want that. Happily he seemed to be listening. She enjoyed watching as he pulled his suit apart, unzipped around the middle, loosened the straps that held together the top and shrugged it off.

Rey couldn’t control the moan that escaped her lips. Part of her reaction was due to the sight of Ben’s naked torso. He was big, that much had been obvious even - especially - under the covering of the suppression suit, but without the fabric covering him she could see that he was strong, too. Muscular, with thick arms, veins from his knuckles up to his forearms, defined pectoral muscles, his nipples red and stiff. His abdominal muscles were defined, too; they contracted as he looked down at her. Well, she assumed he was looking down at her; he’d removed his top, but the mask was still set firmly against his face, covering his hair.

The other part of her reaction was due to the fresh scent that was revealed when he removed the gland protector from around his neck. She could see his scent glands from where she lay, they were inflamed and red, but the scent emanating from them was glorious and made her head swim. It was fresh and clean, rain and surf and trees, moving air and tumbling water; nature, all of the outdoors, brought together in the scent of this one half-naked man. His scent calmed her even as it caused her to desire him closer; beside her, inside her. Fresh slick flowed from between her legs and she added it to that already collected on her thighs.

After removing his top Ben paused, hands on his hips but making no move to push down his bottoms, and Rey gave him only a moment before she demanded, perhaps a touch impatiently, “Well?” Her restless frustration was followed immediately by doubt. Had he changed his mind between the time he’d started removing his clothing and now? He’d been insistent earlier that he didn’t want to go into rut, and it appeared that he’d changed his mind - but what if he’d changed it back? Rey didn’t want to force him to do anything. Without a word she brought her knees back together and sat herself up on the bed.

“What is it, Ben? Did you change your mind? That’s okay. We can stop, you can leave, it’s really okay.” Rey meant it, although she supposed her copious tears could lead him to believe she was lying, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. 

Ben made a noise behind the mask, and when he made it a second time she realized that he was laughing. He raised his hands and moved them towards her, but didn’t actually touch her, and Rey thought she was going to die.

“I haven’t changed my mind,” he rumbled, frozen, his cock - Rey couldn’t help but notice - still hard, straining at the front of his suit. “I, uh… I have an idea.”

“What kind of idea?” Rey was trying not to let her anxiety become too conspicuous. She didn’t want to whine, and she didn’t want to beg or be too demanding, but it had been a while since her last orgasm and if she didn’t have one soon it was going to get painful.

Ben seemed to get the memo, and maybe he was nervous too, because once he started talking the words spilled quickly from behind his mask, as his hands grasped together anxiously.

“You know that I never planned to do this - to rut, and, uh, knot. You know. But I’ve thought about it, and if you’ve seen my videos you know that I have, uh, things. That I like. And you said you like it too. What you saw in the video, I mean. So I was thinking - hoping, really, I was hoping, _really_ hoping - that we could try it the first time? I'm a little afraid, too, of, uh, losing control. I want to know what it's like, first, if that makes sense. Because we only have the first time once, and I don't want to ruin it. It’s okay if you don’t want to, but if you’re willing, it would be nice. It would be really nice.”

A repeat of Rey’s fantasy from earlier played in her head: Ben, unmoving, bound hand and foot to the bed, naked, with his hair fanned out on the pillows. Only this time both his hands were tied, and instead of his own hand on his cock it was Rey’s, and Rey’s body laid flush against his, her nose and tongue pressed against his scent gland. He was in full rut, wanting to take her, to force her, but he couldn't move, and she could take her time as he struggled and bellowed. Rey mounting him, taking his cock into her cunt, both of them crying out with one voice as they reached orgasm together and his knot expanded and held her to him, so tightly they can never, ever separate…

“Yes,” Rey declared, and stretched out to push the blankets and sheets off the bed, leaving it naked aside from the fitted sheet and a few pillows at the head of the bed. “Get the rope. We can do whatever you want.”

Ben stood unmoving for just a moment; Rey could swear he was vibrating slightly, like a very weak and oversized electric toothbrush. Then he hopped to it, grabbed several skeins of rope from the box, and Rey sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed and watched as he proceeded to expertly weave the ropes around the gaps in the headboard and footboard. He’d been practicing since the video she watched; his hands moved so quickly she had difficulty making sense of what exactly he was doing. In just a few minutes he was finished, and he pulled long strands of rope from the bedframe into the middle of the mattress, to where Rey sat watching, waiting, her belly just beginning to cramp.

"Scoot," he demanded, his fingertips brushing against her upper arm. Soreness bloomed, and she pitched forward, rendered temporarily speechless by the cramp that wracked her body, radiating out from her belly and reaching her fingertips and the soles of her feet.

Ben's hands were on her, soothing and immediate, and he pressed an object into her hand.

"Use this," he rumbled from behind the mask, an instruction that would accept no argument, and she found herself unable to say no, even if she'd wanted to. It was the knotting dildo she'd used earlier, and with a sigh of thanks she rolled onto her back and slipped it home, inflating the knot until it filled her and she was coming again, easing the pain enough that she was able to uncurl and open her eyes, and wipe away her tears with the back of her hand.

“Is that better?” Ben cooed, lifting her gently and removing her from the bed to place her on the sheets and blankets she’d pushed onto the floor earlier. “I’m sorry I hurt you, but I need you to get off the bed for a minute.”

“Didn’t hurt,” Rey mumbled as she rolled onto her knees and peered over the edge of the mattress, riding out her orgasm and watching as Ben proceeded to settle himself in the middle of the bed. He glanced over at her and tutted.

“Lie back down, sweetheart,” he said again, using the tone that she _should_ hate but didn’t. “I need to take care of this so I can take care of you. It won’t take too long, I promise.”

Rey wanted to make Ben happy, so she did as he asked, laying back on the floor and inflating the knot again, driving her body towards another release.

She knew what Ben was doing up there, she’d seen him do it on the video, so it was easy enough to close her eyes and imagine. He’d tie up his legs, first, because he’d need his hands free up to the end. She wanted to learn how to secure him herself; she’d need to, hopefully. Wouldn’t she? 

Yes, she would. Because this, this connection with Ben, was _real_ ; and that meant her future would be full of more of _this_. Warmth bloomed in her chest at the thought as another orgasm shot through her body, leaving her breathless and covered in slick. 

As she recovered, a potential problem for the more immediate future occurred to Rey, and she called out, “Aren’t you going to take your pants off? How are you going to knot me if you’re wearing pants?”

Ben answered with a laugh, and something black and bulky flew over the edge of the bed and landed heavily on the floor next to her; it was the bottom half of his suppression suit, and she grabbed it and held it against her face with a cry. It smelled incredible, sweat and rain and wind and something very Ben, undeniably masculine and alpha and _hers_. She came again, and wrapped herself around the bottoms, rolling and groaning, and she could hear Ben chuckling up on the bed.

There was more, though. As she investigated the trousers, stuck her hands in the leg holes, just to see how long and large they were, she discovered something else in there. A pair of underwear, black boxer shorts, made of the softest, sweetest material Rey had ever touched. They were coated with Ben’s cum.

“What are these?” She moaned, holding them up so Ben could see them over the edge of the bed.

“Pair of boxers.” He answered with a grunt. “My best pair, not that I thought anything was going to happen. Just… yeah.” 

“Hmm, your best pair. Do you want them back? Because they’re perfect, I love them, and I’m pretty sure I want to keep them forever.”

Ben grunted again, louder this time, and the bed shook slightly. “I’m pretty sure,” he gritted out, “that that is _exactly_ what I want. You can do whatever you need to with my underwear. I can always buy another pair.”

The scent of fresh cum wafted over, tickling Rey's olfactory nerves. Ben had had another orgasm thinking about her and his boxers, and that tipped her into another herself. She inflated the knot again - that poor dildo was getting quite a workout - and writhed and moaned until the worst of it was over.

Rey returned her attention to the soft material of his boxers - they were silk, she was very sure. She’d never touched silk before but it was so soft and warm and delicate, she could imagine being wrapped up in that fabric with Ben and his scent and never, ever wanting to leave. What else could it be but silk?

“Rey?” Ben’s voice, laced with concern, came muted from behind the mask. “Are you okay?”

She cleared her throat. “M’fine,” she answered, pulling the crotch of the boxers out of her mouth. How had they even got in there? “Your boxers feel nice. Are they made of silk?”

“Yeah,” he answered. His left foot appeared at the bottom corner of the bed. Sitting up, she could just see the rope wrapped securely around his ankle.

“I’ve never touched silk before,” Rey murmured as she rubbed the underwear into her face again; she felt as though she was absorbing his scent through her pores. “I think I like it.” In a burst of inspiration she unballed the boxers and opened them up, pushing her feet through the openings and up her hips. They were loose but since she was lying down it didn’t really matter; she was wearing Ben’s silk boxers, what had been against his body was now against hers, his cum against her skin, and that was what was important right now.

“I’ll buy you silk,” Ben moaned as his left hand appeared at the upper corner of the bed, wrenched up there by the rope connecting his wrist to the bedframe. “I’ll buy you all the silk you want.”

“Oh yeah?” Rey rubbed herself inside the boxers as another orgasm wracked her body, another unsatisfying fake knot, another splash of slick coming out to drench her, and the silk, and the blankets beneath. 

“Yeah,” Ben answered with a grunt. “Silk sheets, silk dresses, silk lingerie. I’ll buy you bolts of silk at wholesale, you can drape them around all the furniture in the house. We’ll live in silk. All silk, all the time.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re mine, Rey. My Omega. And I’m gonna take care of you.” he declared with a slight whine, giving the bedframe another shake.

“I am yours,” she agreed, thrilled to hear him say it, because she knew it was true. She rolled back onto her knees again so she could take a peek at Ben on the bed. “And you’re mine. My Alpha.” As the words passed her lips and she caught sight of him a sob and fresh tears escaped as well. She meant it, too. She never thought she would, and now she did. And it wasn't just biology, although she had to admit that the biology made it sweeter. 

Ben was almost completely tied down, and almost completely naked; the only thing he was wearing now was the mask. _That damn fucking mask_ , a little voice in Rey’s head spat. _Covering his beautiful face. Holding back his beautiful hair_.

She would remove it soon enough.

As Rey got slowly to her feet, she took in the rest of Ben. He was so large that spread-eagled on the bed, he almost covered it, his feet nearly reaching the bottom corners and his left hand almost touching the top corner. His right hand was relatively free, although the rope had already been wrapped and secured around his wrist, and a slack length of rope attached it to the frame in the last corner. In his hand he held a rope that her eyes followed off the bed, and then back up to the frame again. She stepped around the bed, leaning on the edge of the mattress for support, until she stood by his head. He offered her the rope in his hand. She grabbed it, and as she tugged, Ben’s arm was wrenched up towards the corner of the bed. She stopped pulling when his arm was straight; his hand almost reached the wood of the frame.

“Is that comfortable?” she asked, and he nodded. 

“Yeah, it’s fine.” He pulled then, all his limbs together, and although the bed shook it was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere.

He was ready.

“Ben,” Rey said, kneeling on the bed beside him, “Are you sure you’re comfortable?”

“Yes,” he groaned, and heat bloomed in her chest. She studied him up and down, from his head - mask covering his face and his hair - down his body; his abdomen, muscles taut, a pool of cum covering his stomach; his cock, standing at attention, the base of it slightly thicker than the rest - _don’t pay too much attention yet Rey_ \- all the way down his legs to his ankles. He was enormous; all spread out, and all for her. His muscles, strong and taut, held back by the ropes and his own submission. Rey was struck but the amount of trust he was showing her by laying himself out like this. They had, after all, only known each other for a matter of hours, but she felt like she’d known him for much longer than that. She ached to feel his skin against her own and couldn’t wait to feel him under her body.

“Yes, this feels really good,” he reiterated. “I love being tied down by you. Uh, for you. I like how you’re looking at me. How are you?”

Rey took a moment to consider herself. The process of Ben securing himself to the bed had helped to distract her, but now that she was paying attention again she could feel herself, her arousal and need building again.

“I’m good. I like this. Having you like this, I mean. But I’m going to start cramping soon, I need to have another orgasm. I need you to knot me.”

“Oh God,” Ben whimpered, and he started to agitate, just a bit. “Oh God, we’re going to do it, aren’t we. We are. Oh my God. Are you wearing my boxers?”

Rey laughed and laid a hand on his chest, and he immediately relaxed. 

“They’re big but they’re comfy. They smell like you, and I like them on me, although I think I’m going to take them off now. And yes, we _are_ going to do it, but only if you want to, Ben. We can stop any time.”

He started shaking his head when she was still talking, and shivered as she pulled down the boxers and threw them on the floor. 

“Oh no, I want to, it’s just a lot. I want to. Can we do it now? You’re naked; I want to do it _now_.” 

There was a growl growing in Ben’s voice, and Rey could imagine a curl at the corner of his lip. The thought made Rey’s heart sing even though she wasn’t sure she liked it. It was very alpha, and even though she was wired for it by instinct, the part of her that she considered _her_ rebelled against it.

“Soon, Ben. I want your mask off the first time you knot me. I want to see you, I want you to smell me.”

Ben’s voice whined, muted through the chrome of the mask. “Keep it on. I already feel… I need you to know I want _you_ , Rey. That it’s not just biology.”

Rey sighed and shook her head. “You don’t need to convince me of that, Ben. You’ve done everything I’ve asked of you, you’re such a good alpha.” At her passing words of praise his head fell back against the pillow and his body shuddered. Slick gushed from between her legs in response to his quivering muscles. _That_ was interesting. She leaned closer to his ear, taking care not to touch him, and murmured, “ _Such_ a good alpha. The best alpha. _My_ Alpha...you take such good care of me, you feed me good food, and you smell _delicious_.” 

Ben whined again and tilted his head sideways, away from her, exposing his scent gland. Her mouth watered, and juice dripped down and tickled the bend of her knee. Rey couldn’t wait; she climbed onto him, straddling his torso. She landed just over his belly button, sitting right in the middle of the cooling puddle of cum, his poor cock laying hard and neglected just behind her. She slowly rotated her hips, mixing her own slick in with the cum on his belly. Ben whined and agitated against the bonds, but they held him immovable.

“Do you want me to smell you, Ben?”

“Yes,” he whimpered. “Yes, _please_.”

Rey, bent down, pressed her breasts against him and lowered her face to his neck and inhaled, loudly and deeply. His scent overwhelmed her, fresh and raw and completely, wonderfully his. She couldn’t prevent the groan that escaped her chest, and her thighs shook as she moved even closer to him, the tip of her nose almost touching his gland, and took another drag of his soothing scent. She lifted her hips and wiggled her ass in the air, enjoying the cooling of the moisture evaporating off her skin. 

“Lick it,” he moaned. “Lick it, Rey.”

There was a touch of a command there. Not enough to get her to follow out of instinct, but enough to give her a twinge behind her right eye.

“Excuse me?” She pulled away from him and sat up so she could look into the eyepiece of his mask. “What did you say?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed nervously. "Please… please put your mouth on me, Rey.”

She grinned down at him as he continued to moan and began to struggle against the restraints. “Please, I want to feel you… you, Rey… only Rey. Please, have me… want you to have me..."

Rey leaned back down to his ear, and his babbling faded. She waited patiently, and when he had ceased talking completely, she whispered: “Yes. But only because you ask so sweetly, Alpha.”

Rey had never licked a scent gland, had never even considered doing it. Although they were usually exposed, scent glands were _private_ , to be ignored, not looked at nor commented on, and never, ever touched. Rey'd had plenty of sex with alphas before and had never been tempted by a scent gland, but she thought that Ben’s - which would normally be a simple raised circle of skin, barely noticeable against the side of his neck, though currently bright red and practically begging to be stroked - was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. It smelled like him, like rain and fresh air and things that don’t stay still. Her whole body pressing against his, Rey pushed her tongue out of her mouth, and touched the tip of it against his gland.

The gland almost fizzled against her tongue, like the sensation of eating Pop Rocks; and the burst of flavor was fresh and reminded her of saltwater taffy that Finn had brought back for her from a visit to New Jersey a couple of years before. Just like his scent, his flavor reminded her of ocean surf and thunderstorms and trees, but it was even _more_. It was nature itself, Earth from a million years ago, when the world was clean and there was more oxygen in the atmosphere than anyone would ever need. Before she knew it her mouth was embracing the gland entirely as she sucked on Ben's neck; his flavor was intoxicating. She was dimly aware of noises, grunting and crying, and she couldn't tell if it was herself or him. A splash of hot fluid against her backside caught her attention; Ben had come again, dousing both of them. Without a word and keeping her eyes focused on the dark goggles of the mask, Rey passed a finger through the fresh cum on her hip, brought it up to her mouth and licked.

* * *

The sight of Rey licking his cum off her finger almost killed Ben. 

He was already overwhelmed and weak from the numerous seemingly impossible fantasies that had already come true in the previous hour, but when she’d touched her tongue to his scent gland his brain had collapsed in on itself, forming a dark point that was only aware of the sounds of Rey’s hungry moans and the sensation of her tongue as she licked and suckled on his neck as though trying to consume him entirely. So when that same tongue touched the cream which had only recently been inside him it was as though his life, such as it was, flashed briefly in front of his eyes, and the edges of his sight darkened even as stars flashed. But it passed quickly, and he was coming again, almost painfully, another helping of ejaculate being squeezed somehow from his quickly-dehydrating body.

Rey giggled, and he wanted to laugh, too, but instead he heard himself growl. That just made her giggle harder.

“Save some of that for me, sweet Alpha,” she scolded, as she propped herself up on her feet and pulled the dildo out of her. It landed on Ben with a wet _plop_ , and she picked it up and tossed it unceremoniously onto the floor. “Won’t be needing that anymore,” she muttered, and lowered herself onto his torso again. 

“Yes,” he promised. “Yes, saving for you, all for you. No more until I’m inside you.”

She raised her eyebrows and shot him an expression that indicated she was seriously impressed. “Really? You can do that?”

Ben had no idea if that was something he could do or not, but if she wanted it he would find a way.

“Yes,” he replied.

“I won’t make you wait,” she cooed, seeming to take pity on him. “Just need to get your mask off. Are you ready?”

Was he ready? His brain wasn’t sure, but his body was screaming for her, so it averaged it out to a yes.

“Yes, please.” He whined, and he hated it, but she smiled and that made it better.

It took her a moment to find the latch under his chin that released the seal, but she did, and Ben heard the front of the mask lifting out and up just a moment before the return of Rey’s scent.

But this was nothing like the sweet magnolia and honey he’d scented in the air that morning. This was so much more - it was roses and lavender and cinnamon, honey and maple and a touch of bitter molasses. She was chocolate chip cookies and shortbread and he wanted to eat her, to consume her, to absorb her into his bloodstream until there was no more of her, and no more of him, but only _them_ , just them together as one. She was everything and he would do anything for her. 

But he couldn’t _do_ anything at all because he was _tied down to this fucking bed_.

He pulled his wrists, and he tugged at his ankles; one and the other, as hard as he could, but he was secured too well. Of course he was; he’d done the ropes himself, and he’d had a lot of careful practice, and he’d never thought there would be a time when he would want to escape the bindings. His scent glands, which had already been itching, were digging into his neck. His mating gland was on fire, and the only thing that could soothe it was his Omega.

There was noise, so much noise, and he didn’t know when it was coming from until he felt a soothing hand against his chest and a soft voice cutting through it all.

“Alpha… Ben… Alpha…” the voice was sunshine and it belonged to his Omega, his one and only, and he had to listen to her, because it was his responsibility to take care of her. So he stopped and he listened; he couldn’t wait to hear what she needed from him.

“Open your eyes.”

His eyes had been closed, he hadn’t even realized it, so he opened them, as his Omega had requested. And there she was. She was even more beautiful with his mask off. Not only because he could smell her, his body and his brain were in absolute agreement about that. The goggles were dark and had muted her colors; the golden glow of her skin, with the flickerings of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. The pink plush of her lips. The chestnut of her hair. The glorious woody green-brown of her eyes.

She was his, and she was perfect.

She smiled down at him. 

“There you are. Congratulations; you’re having a rut. What do you think?”

Her words were nonchalant but her body belied her; muscles tense, voice strained, pupils dilated. He could feel her slick pooling on his torso, and it pleased him, very much. Although he thought he couldn’t speak he made an attempt, but whatever he tried to say came out as a growl instead, and he tugged on the ropes some more just to make some kind of point.

His Omega - Rey - was on his belly, still sitting in that puddle of cum he’d made when he’d come all over himself while he was tying himself up earlier. That had been interesting, but he wanted more. He needed to be inside her, to hold her to himself with his knot, to fill her with his cum, to impregnate her, make her fat with his babies…

Shit. Shit and fuck and shit again.

“No.” He found a word. “No babies!”

Rey froze. “What? What did you say?”

Ben worked so hard to focus his thoughts, to find the words. “Wait, please. Just… need to tell you. I want to do this, but I can’t give you babies. Should have told you earlier but just didn’t think… had a vasectomy before I left home. I don’t want...never wanted to have to think about it. I’m sorry.”

Rey’s head fell, and her silence lasted for several moments. Ben’s stomach churned when her shoulders started to shake.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, tears forming in his own eyes. “I’m so sorry, Rey.”

Then she lifted her face back up, and he could see that she was laughing. 

“Oh my God, Ben,” she said, “that is the best news I’ve heard in ages, you have no idea.” And without any more fanfare she lifted up her hips, lined herself up, and with her eyes boring into his she sat back and took his cock all the way inside her.

* * *

Rey was flying. 

She’d fantasized about what Ben’s cock would feel like inside her and had craved it with an intensity that bordered on madness, but the reality of it was overwhelming. He filled her body perfectly; the physical relief was like nothing she’d experienced in her life as an omega. She came as soon as Ben was inside her, and he was coming too. He was convulsing beneath her, and he was yelling, crying, his beautiful honey eyes focused on her, as though he was peering into her soul. She was crying, too, hot tears flowing down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. They were happy tears, though. Rey thought she’d never been so happy, felt so complete, in her entire life.

Her orgasm began to recede, but Ben was still agitating, his hips thrusting into her as well as they could considering he could barely move, in a steady rhythm that made her think of waves breaking on a beach. 

“Oh my God,” he moaned. “I’m still coming.”

Rey pressed a hand to his chest, and did her best to relax so she could move with him. She had no choice, really, considering she was held tight to him by his knot.

“You are,” she murmured, her head still buzzing from the contact and from her own pleasure. 

“Oh my God. You feel amazing. This is incredible.”

“It is,” she agreed. “Incredible.” Being knotted had never felt like this before. 

They moved together for long minutes, the motion soft and soothing, the fullness of Ben’s cock and knot locking him to her more comforting than she could have imagined it could be. He was ejaculating continuously, Rey could feel it inside her, and eventually there was too much and it started to leak out around the knot. 

“What a waste,” she murmured, and she scooped it up with her fingers and sucked it off, enjoying the hot, salty bitterness that danced across her tongue.

“Oh my God,” Ben said, his eyes wide, still in the midst of his orgasm. Rey scooped up more and leaned over him, pressing her coated fingers into his mouth. He licked it off without complaint, his tongue soft and warm against her digits.

“My good Alpha,” Rey praised him, and he whimpered with pleasure, “tasting himself like a good boy.”

He licked his lips and moaned. “I can taste _you_ , Omega… so good. I want… I want to be a good alpha. Good for you.”

“You are _so_ good for me, Ben,” Rey affirmed, rubbing her face against his chest and then looking up at him. “I love being able to see your face, look into your eyes.”

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, and tugged his arms against their bonds. “I want to hold you, to touch you. May I touch you?”

She pressed a kiss against the center of his chest. “Soon, my darling. I’ll untie you once your orgasm stops. Okay?” 

“Yes,” he breathed, “Okay.”

It was only a few minutes more before Ben’s hips stilled and he rested quietly, eyes closed and breathing steady. His knot was still fully inflated; it felt incredible, and she wished she could see it, too. Rey wondered how long it would be before it would let her go. This had already been the longest knotting she’d personally experienced, and even so she didn’t really want it to end.

“How are you feeling, my Alpha?” Rey asked, tracing a finger over one of Ben’s eyebrows.

“Really good,” he answered, opening his eyes and gazing at her again. His face was so expressive, she didn’t think she’d met anyone who wore their emotions so clearly on their face. And his was a lovely face. 

“Are you calm? Can I untie you now?”

Ben sighed, and gazed around the room. “I think I’m good, and I would like to hold you. To loosen the knots, we can tug on these ropes here.” He reached out a finger of his left hand and touched a length of rope lying there; he was able to curl his finger around it and hold it in his hand. With a quick tug, his left hand was out of the rope.

“Hey! You could have untied yourself at any point!”

He grinned at her, dimples showing deep in both cheeks. She wanted to kiss them.

“I could have,” he confirmed. “But what would have been the fun in that?” With a laugh he draped his left arm around her back, and soon his right arm followed. She wrapped her arms around him, too, and held him tight, then leaned forward and pressed her lips against the dimple on his left cheek, and then his right. 

She pulled back with a grin of her own; he looked up at her in amazement.

“We haven’t kissed,” he whispered. “May I kiss you?”

“Oh! Oh, yes.”

“It’s my first kiss,” Ben admitted, stroking her lower lip with his thumb.

“Let’s make it count,” Rey said, and closed the space between them, pressing her lips against his. 

She’d known his lips would be soft, but they were even softer than she’d expected. His breath was sweet, and his tongue, when she encouraged him to open his mouth and accept her own, was soft and tasted delicious. While they kissed he ran his fingers through her hair, scratched behind her ears. Rey felt safe; she felt loved.

Eventually she pulled away.

“Ben,” she said, laying her head on his chest, “I am so exhausted. Can we take a nap now?” She wiggled her backside experimentally, causing him to groan.

“I’m so sorry, Rey,” he murmured, nuzzling into her hair. “If I could make it let go I would.”

Rey giggled into his neck. “Oh Ben, no, this is fine. It’s wonderful, actually. But I would like to take a nap, for a while.”

“Of course. Can you release my legs first? The ropes are right behind you, if you can reach them.”

The ropes were right behind her, and she could reach them. He groaned and bent his legs up, and the changing angle of the knot pushed Rey into another orgasm. She cried out, and then Ben cried out too, as he came in her wake.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, “Oh my God.”

More of his cum leaked out of her; she felt him scoop it up and then watched as he methodically spread it across her chest. Unbound, Ben was free to sit up, the perfect position to take Rey's breasts into his mouth; first one, then the other. 

She took the opportunity to tug the band off the end of his braid.

"Do you mind," she asked, pushing her fingers between the thick gatherings of hair, "if I take this out?"

He shook his head and mumbled something incoherent without removing his mouth from her nipple, and she took that as a "yes." A minute later his thick dark hair was free and she gripped handfuls of it in her fists as she guided his mouth back up to hers.

But they were exhausted, eyes heavy, and they soon lay back down together and slept, still connected by their bodies, and by their shared affection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RE: Breeding kink - not only is there none, in this chapter Ben tells Rey that he had a vasectomy and she is very happy about that. Babies won't be mentioned again; neither of them want them, and that's that.
> 
> On Twitter, I asked [@MrsMancuspia](https://twitter.com/MrsMancuspia) for "Long-braided Kylo with pixie-cut Rey" and she delivered! It was a sneaky way of asking for an illustration for U&T, she drew them in canonverse and that only makes it better. [Go to Twitter and give her some love](https://twitter.com/MrsMancuspia/status/1151589648264830977). (I have commissioned from her in the past and would 100% recommend)
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
> My attention was caught by [this twitter question/prompt](https://twitter.com/Safety_Thirst/status/1145713442462081025), so it is very likely that something along those lines will come as a future oneshot in this universe, if you're into that kind of thing. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another month-long wait, we're so sorry! This chapter was written by leoba and then substantially improved upon by flypaper_brain (ABO connoisseur) and sometimes quality just takes time.
> 
> This one chapter turned into a 10k monster, so to give you an intermission we have divided it in two, but we're posting them both at once.
> 
> An Epilogue will follow soon!
> 
> Thank you to juniordreamer for the beautiful gifset moodboard!
> 
>   
>    
> 

Ben was floating on the edge of consciousness. He was aware of heat, something in his arms that was soft and warm and smelled delicious - ambrosial, familiar, and safe.

He breathed in the scent and allowed his mind to wander. Everywhere it went, she was there; her, his Omega, Rey. The beauty with the sharp intelligence and the ability to make his heart stutter with a raise of an eyebrow. He hadn’t even known her twenty-four hours, and she’d stolen his heart and then she’d given him his first rut; had taken his virginity, taken his first knot, and dominated him so softly and sweetly it brought tears to his eyes to just think about it. 

His cock stirred as he breathed her scent in deeper and thought about how it felt to be inside her. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced, or even imagined; it was perfect. _She_ was perfect. When she’d gazed into his eyes and taken him it had felt like heaven, like he was finally home. He’d spent his entire life fighting his biology, and he would have continued to for the rest of it, happily, but now… he couldn’t imagine it any other way. She felt perfect around his cock, around his knot, as though his body had been made just for her; and hers, for him. He thought of her beautiful voice, and how she’d cried out as her body embraced him with tender ferocity; how she’d taken every drop of the cum his body gave her as it insisted on coming, coming to orgasm and just not stopping; how she’d become so full of his spend and was making so much slick that it leaked out of her, drenching them both; and how she’d reached down and brought a handful of their combined fluids to her lips and had eaten it - and then fed it to him, too. 

That had been wonderful, and intimate. He’d tasted both of them, and he loved it.

Ben was hard, his erection pressed solidly against Rey’s backside as he gathered her even closer. The sex, and the knotting, had been wonderful, but this felt perfect too; waking up in bed with her, just being in her presence. Another kind of intimacy; different, but just as sweet. Rey moaned and rolled over to face him. He could tell she was awake by the slight variance in her scent; a touch more magnolia when she moaned and stretched the first time, slight increase in brown sugar when she pressed back against him, a wash of cinnamon when she rolled over to face him, her eyes brightened when they found his.

“Alpha,” she breathed, pushing messy tresses out of his face and over his shoulder. Her gaze drifted down to his mouth, then took in all of his face, and then met his eyes again. “Real?”

“Real,” he confirmed. The last day had been like something out of a dream, yet nothing had ever felt more real to him in his life. He pressed his nose to the scent gland on the left side of her neck and ventured a lick. She moaned and lifted her head to give him better access even as she drew closer to him. All of her sweetness, her flowers and cookies, were imbued with the underlying scent of desire - desire for _him_. He could tell that she had been through a cycle, and that she needed him again, and he needed her too. He opened his mouth, intending to say something like, “And if I’m not mistaken, we need to knot again,” but all that came out - in a voice so heavy and harsh he barely recognized it as his own, was one single word: “ _ **Knot**_.”

Rey responded to his voice with a whine and a spike of sweetness. He pushed her over and onto her back and settled between her legs, his cock hard and heavy against her thigh, already drenched with slick. She gazed up at him, her hazel eyes shining and dark, and she opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a deep groan. She grasped at him, scrambling at his shoulders and lifting her hips up against him, and he followed her guidance, pressing her body down with his and thrusting into her with equal urgency. At the first thrust she cried out, and she clung to him as he thrust again, and again, pulling out almost all the way before going all the way back in. He managed four thrusts before he came, embedded deep inside her, flooding her with his spend once again. She shouted as her body came in response.

His orgasm ended much sooner than the first one, although it still lasted several minutes, as did Rey’s. It pleased him that their bodies seemed to naturally sync in this way, and he lost himself in the sensation of her body pulsing around his knot as it expanded, locking them together for a second time. Once their orgasms started to ebb, the haze that had been over Ben’s brain - without him even being aware of it - started to lift, and he could think clearly again. He hoped he would be able to speak again, too.

“Hey,” he murmured, running his hand through her short hair, which was damp and spiked around his fingers.

“Hey yourself,” Rey replied with a smile, and put her hands on his cheeks to pull his face down for a kiss. After a minute he relaxed and laid down on her, resting his head on her shoulder so his nose was nestled close to her scent gland. With every inhale he breathed in a bit of her; he closed his eyes so he could concentrate on her scent, the entire spectrum of it. He could almost imagine it in colors, a rainbow of sweetness. 

Ben could feel Rey’s hands behind him, tugging his hair, and after a while he realized what she was doing.

“Are you braiding my hair?” He mumbled into her neck.

“Maybe,” she answered, dragging out the _a_ and giving his hair a gentle tug that sent a shiver down his spine and all the way around his body. She giggled when his cock jumped inside her, and gave him a squeeze. “I used to have really long hair, and I braided it a lot, pulled it back, until I realized it was easier to just keep it short.” She gave it one more tug and then pulled it around so he could see it; just two matching braids, rather messy, but Ben’s throat was thick.

“Thank you, I love it.”

She hummed and rubbed his back, relaxed into his embrace. 

“My mom always braided her hair,” Ben murmured, eyes still closed and olfactory nerves consumed by her scent. “Her hair was thick, and it fell to her waist. My grandma Breha had the same kind of hair, and she taught Mom so many different ways to braid it up. Her hair always looked good. She was so beautiful.”

Rey hummed again, and he could feel that she was running her hand down one of his braids, and then the other.

“Is that why you wear your hair long?”

Ben wasn’t sure exactly why he kept it long. He liked the way it looked, and how it felt. He liked watching his videos, and seeing how it fell messily around his head. It was convenient, because he could always pull it back or put it in a braid to keep it out of the way. And he just didn’t have to worry about it. And yes, maybe he did sometimes stand in front of the bathroom mirror and think about his mother. It made him feel guilty, but he did it anyway.

He didn’t answer her question, but maybe not answering was as good as answering. Rey didn’t press - another thing for him to like about her - and after another minute she asked another question.

“Do you think you could teach me? How to braid your hair like your mom’s?”

Ben sighed, a wet shudder, and it was only then that he realized he was crying. How many times had he looked in the mirror and wished he could make his hair look like hers, a piece of her that he could make for himself?

“Yes,” he answered. “I would like that very much.”

They lay in silence for several more minutes, until his knot went down enough for his cock to gently slip out of her. Rey’s stomach growled, and she wiggled and pushed against his shoulders.

“I’m starving,” she declared. “Let’s go eat those steaks.”

* * *

Ben’s body felt amazing, inside her and on top of her, and she mourned a bit when his cock finally softened and fell out of her. Rey wished they could stay in bed like that forever, peacefully connected, pausing every once in a while to knot again, but her stomach had other ideas. Although she wasn’t unaccustomed to hunger, soon even she was going to begin feeling it as pain. But when she suggested they go have dinner, she was still caught off guard when Ben jumped up so quickly and then pulled her into his arms, carrying her as he had earlier when he’d brought her from the barn to his bedroom.

“Hey!” she cried, joyfully. “I _can_ walk, you know!”

“Oh, yes, I know that, my sweet Omega,” he laughed, skipping into the hall. “But you don’t have to.”

Rey laughed along with him, and Chewie - who had apparently been sleeping on the sofa the entire afternoon - sat up with a _whuff_ and followed them into the kitchen. As Ben carried her through the living room she looked out the front windows at the flurries of snow, falling down onto a fresh new blanket of white. It was fully dark, and perhaps it had been for a while. Rey had no idea what time it could be.

Once in the kitchen Ben set her on one of the stools, looked her up and down with a frown, and bounded out of the room. He returned just a few seconds later with a blanket, which appeared to her unschooled eyes to be very old and handmade, a beautiful shade of buttery yellow that was soft and sweet against her heated skin.

“My grandmother made this for me for my tenth birthday,” Ben said as he draped it around her shoulders, wrapping it around her front. “I love daffodils - even though they don’t have much of a scent they’re my favorites, some of the earliest flowers that come up in Spring. Like little harbingers of better things to come. She made this for me in honor of the daffodils that grow along the creek.” He leaned forward, pressed his forehead against hers. “I would love to show it to you.”

“I would love to see it,” Rey breathed, struck by a sense of longing that made her want him to ask her to stay; she willed him to, but he didn’t. Instead he pressed his lips softly against hers and stepped around the marble island to tie an apron around his naked body. 

So she sat on her stool and enjoyed the view as she watched him cook their steaks. 

Ben was clearly comfortable in the kitchen. His movements were practiced and smooth; pulling the desired pan out of the cabinet, setting the heat on the stove, drawing the now-thawed steaks - wrapped in paper, like something out of a foreign film - out of the fridge. He hummed tunelessly as he worked, seemingly unaware that he was doing it; Rey took it as a sign that he was feeling very content, and it made her smile. 

Once the pan was on the stove and the steaks were unwrapped, Ben fed the dog. Rey was impressed with Chewie, he was clearly well-trained; Ben had trusted him to carry messages back and forth to Rey when she was in the barn, and the Saint Bernard had done the job well and with little complaint (he had insisted that Rey give him scratches around his ears, but she’d been very happy to do so). He waited patiently while Ben worked on preparing their food, and stood quietly by his bowl as Ben dropped the cup of kibble in. At that point he made his hunger obvious, digging his face into the bowl with a vigor that had Rey giggling. 

She looked up from Chewie to find Ben gazing at her, a goofy smile on his face, one braid fallen over his shoulder, and a raw steak, well-marbled and at least an inch thick, in each hand.

“He’s a good dog!” Rey insisted, as he dropped the meat into the hot pan.

“He is, a very good dog.”

Rey watched Ben cook, and as the minutes passed Rey started to feel a familiar tinge -- a warm tingle across her midsection, radiating down between her legs, followed by regular stabs of tightness, and wetness on her backside that threatened the beautiful blanket. Rey knew it was her heat cycle starting back up, her body preparing for another knotting. It would have happened anyway, but there was something about the current situation that seemed to encourage it - Ben, her Alpha, was going to feed her. He was keeping her warm, and now he was cooking for her. Soon, he would feed her. Her body responded exactly as it would be expected to. But she didn’t realize exactly how bad it was until he was removing the steaks from the pan and onto a plate, and then turned and froze, staring at her. 

It was then that she became aware of the noises she was making.

Suddenly, all there was, were his eyes, his scent, his hands on her body. Before she knew what was happening she was being lifted up, off her feet, her front pressed against the cold marble of the island, and he was there, all around her -- her Alpha. Alpha was there to take care of her just the way she needed. He was inside her, moving, and she was crying, a combination of desire and relief. And then she came, and he did too; she knew he did because his knot was there, holding her steady, and she could breathe again.

It only took her a moment to realize that her sudden cycle had put them in a bit of an uncomfortable position. He’d lifted her up to lean against the counter, and she was now pressed between him and the marble edge. It bit into her stomach.

“Ben, this is, uh, can you back up a bit?”

“What? Oh, yeah, sorry.” He backed up enough that the counter was no longer digging into her, and tugged over a stool only to discover that it was too high for her to kneel on, and too low to lean on.

“I don’t mind holding you like this,” Ben insisted, his arms wrapped around Rey’s middle, “until my knot deflates.”

Rey was generally okay with that - he seemed strong enough to hold her up for a while, and although the situation was awkward it wasn’t physically uncomfortable. The worst part of it was that the steaks were on the other side of the island, next to the stove top, and they would be getting cold. She pointed at them, as though she might make them come to her by pure force of will, but of course nothing happened. She sighed, and her stomach gurgled loudly.

“Oh, shit,” Ben exclaimed. “Let’s see if we can get those steaks, okay?”

Together - Ben shuffling across the floor carrying Rey as she walked her hands over the counter - they made their way all the way around the island to the plates of meat, still steaming. Ben pulled a nearby stool over and settled Rey onto his lap, both of them moaning as the new position caused his knot to shift inside her. He directed Rey to the silverware drawer, where she found a fork and a silver steak knife, razor sharp. Within a minute both steaks had been cut into pieces, and they took turns eating. Rey fed them both; first a bite for herself, and then she passed some over her shoulder to Ben, who seemed very content with the arrangement. The meat was delicious, probably the best steak she’d ever eaten (and she’d only eaten steak a few times in her life), and she moaned and groaned and made yummy noises while Ben chuckled over her shoulder and nuzzled into her neck between bites.

By the time they’d finished both steaks Rey’s tummy was full, and Ben’s knot had deflated enough that they could disconnect.

“Oh my goodness, it feels good to be back on solid ground,” Rey groaned as Ben helped her stand up. 

“How do you feel?” he asked, cradling her face and pressing his lips against her forehead.

“I feel great. Feel like taking a bath, actually, if you’re up for it.” She hadn’t forgotten the bathtub in the big bedroom, and the thought of relaxing in there with Ben at her side before they would both need to knot again was a beautiful one.

“Sure,” said Ben, “just give me a minute to clean up and I’ll meet you in the bathroom.”

Rey wanted to go by herself, to start the bath and have it ready for Ben when he was done in the kitchen, but when she thought of actually leaving the room - leaving Ben, being by herself - she was struck with a sudden and unfamiliar anxiety. She stood by the kitchen door, soft yellow blanket pulled around her shoulders, frozen by a combination of indecision and concern. It was broken when Ben called to her from the sink, his hands covered with suds.

“Rey,” he said, in the tone that made her want to obey, though it also sounded like a plea. “Come here, please. I need… I need you to hold me. While I wash the dishes. Is that okay? ”

And, just like that, her anxiety fled. They would run the bath together later; right now, her Alpha needed her. She stepped across the kitchen, around the island, and opened her arms so she could press her naked front against his naked backside. The blanket wasn’t quite wide enough for her to keep a hold of and wrap all the way around his middle, but she did the best she could, and he seemed pleased with her attempt. That was good; she liked pleasing Ben.

She leaned into him and sighed.

“Are you happy, Rey?” He asked, muscles moving in a way that suggested he was placing a plate on the draining sideboard. “Here, with me?”

“I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” she admitted, rubbing her face against the pale expanse of his back. 

“Me too,” he confirmed, turning around and taking her in his arms. “Ever, ever.”

Having Ben close to her was starting to make her feel warm again, and his words added to the heat, but she was really ready for that bath. She took his hand and tugged him towards the door. “Come on, Alpha man. I want to bathe before we go again, and I really want to check out that tub with you. Okay?”

He laughed, a hearty thing that made her heart sing, and followed her out, untying the apron with one hand and depositing it on the sofa on the way through the living room, where it landed unceremoniously on Chewie. The dog barely seemed to notice, and Rey and Ben both laughed as they ran toward the room at the end of the hall.

* * *

Ben never used this bathroom, never even came into the connecting bedroom, so as he ran the water and Rey set out the various bottles he’d brought in earlier - for her, never expecting he might be here too - he hoped that the jets still worked. It would be fine if they didn’t, Rey didn’t seem like the type of person who would care, but he was feeling a little bit proud, and he wanted to make her happy. Was this his alpha-ness, or just him being himself? He couldn’t really tell anymore.

Rey had unwrapped the blanket from around her shoulders and folded it up, set it on top of the toilet, and was just stepping into the tub when he had an excellent idea. He was willing to admit that the idea probably had something to do with the heady scent that wafted his way when she lifted her leg, to place her foot in the water, but he still thought it was a pretty good one. 

“Hey Rey, wait a sec,” he said, snatching her calf and gently lifting her foot out of the tub and back onto the fluffy bath rug. She had to set her hand on the top of his head to keep balance and she reached down to tug one of his braids when she did. She’d braided his hair earlier, he’d found it calming and much more than pleasant. He decided that having Rey’s hands in his hair was one of his favorite things in the world.

She looked down at him expectantly, a slight smile on her lips, and tilted her head to the side, just so. Her eyes were sparkling, and he wondered if she knew what he was going to suggest. _If_ he could get up the guts to suggest it. It occurred to him that although his spirit was very willing, he had no idea how to actually go about doing what he wanted to do.

“You smell really good,” he said, an obvious ploy to give himself more time to get the guts to suggest the thing he desperately wanted to do to her.

Rey’s smile widened. “Thank you,” she replied. “So do you.”

“Ah.”

“Did you want something, or may I get in the tub now?”

“I want something.”

He was pretty sure the thing she was doing with her mouth now was what a writer might call a _playful grin_.

“What do you want, Alpha?” She asked, some of the authority from earlier - when he was tied to the bed and she was deciding what was going to happen, and when - seeping into her voice. His grip on her leg tightened, and he fought to keep his eyes from closing. “Use your words.”

“I want,” he began quietly, “to lay you on the floor, right here, and lick the slick from your thighs. Then I want to drink it from your cunt, and I want to lick you and suck you until you come on my face. Then we can take a bath.” He’d been embarrassed when he started speaking, but she looked so delighted that by the time he finished speaking he was grinning, too.

“Well, if my Alpha wants to do that, I guess I’d better let him, shouldn’t I,” Rey teased, lowering herself to the ground and laying on her back right next to where Ben was crouching. She kept her eyes on his as she opened her legs, giving him an excellent view of the thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs, and the smooth flesh, glistening with slick, nested within. Her cunt was beautiful, so pink and swollen; and smelled sweet and delicious - a dessert he could gorge on for hours.

Now that he was presented with it, Ben wasn’t sure exactly how to start, but Rey was there to help. 

“I know you’ve never done this before, Ben,” she murmured soothingly, pulling her knees closer to her chest to give him more access. “Just do what you said you wanted to do, and it’ll be fine. Better make it quick, though.”

He could sense the growing arousal in her scent, it amazed him how quickly it was spiking. “You’re going to need my knot soon, aren’t you, Rey?” he asked, lowering himself to his elbows and his face towards her cunt.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “It’s exciting when you touch me, when you say you want to do things to me. I think we’ll need to keep knotting a lot for a while still, but it should calm down some soon. Eventually we won’t be needing to do it every thirty minutes.” He felt a brief, and irrational flare of disappointment at this news, but soon threw himself into the task at hand. 

Ben licked a stripe on her inner thigh from her knee all the way to the crease of her thigh. She tasted divine, her skin and sweat and the slick itself, with her sweet scent permeating the air all around him. It was ambrosial. 

He took a quick peek up her body and found her peeking right back at him; the expression on her face had shifted from a grin to something more serious.

“Alpha, _please_.”

He couldn’t bear to hear her wanting, so he set timidity aside and lowered his face to her. If he thought licking up her thigh was delicious, her cunt against his mouth was otherworldly. Her scent, her flavor, the heat emanating from her skin, and the feel of her slick against his tongue carried him somewhere else. He closed his eyes and let his instincts guide him - his instincts, and feedback from Rey, which was loud and bold and encouraging. 

As Ben licked and sucked between Rey’s legs, drinking her up and eating her whole, he could sense the alpha-ness taking over, and he was surprised to find that he welcomed it. It helped him to care for her - Rey, his Omega - helped him to know how to care for her, how to make her happy, how to give her exactly what she needed. It interpreted her cries and her movements and her scents, so many scents, so many variants. He didn’t really have to think about it, but he didn’t need to - he was free to put himself aside and let the alpha live. His conscious mind understood why he’d stayed away from it for so long, but he was glad to have it, here and now with Rey. For Rey.

Rey had an orgasm against his mouth, a sharp cry from above partnered with a generous splash from below; and then she had a second one, even stronger than the first if her scent was to be trusted - which it was. She was approaching a third when there was a sudden spike of cinnamon and she whined, a forlorn, animalistic sound, and this time he noticed when his brain flipped from thinking of her as _Rey_ to thinking of her as _Omega_.

He didn't think about it for long, though, because his Omega needed something, and only he could give it to her. He lifted his head from her cunt and moved up her body, licking and kissing and covering her with his own scent from the glands on his neck, until his cock was positioned at her dripping entrance. He knew that she liked the thrusts - not only the knotting, but what came before - from how she had responded the second time, in the bedroom, so he held off for as long as he could. He held her wrists over her shoulders and she wrapped her legs around his hips and as he thrust into her he thought about the sound the creek makes after the winter melt; when the snow and ice from the mountains flows down and fills the creek to its brim. The water is so loud, almost violent, churning down the channel, carrying sticks and rocks and various detritus that had been suffocated under the snow all winter, and are delighted to find themselves suddenly free.

She came for the third time, with a shout and a gush of slick, and he was somehow able to keep going, because he knew that was what she wanted. His Omega liked to have orgasms and he would do whatever he needed to make her happy. The water in the creek continued churning and so did he, and she came again but this time she held him tight, so he couldn't move, and she wailed but he understood that it was a command, and that command was _Alpha, come, knot me now_ , so he did.

As soon as his release passed he could sense the alpha slipping away, and himself returning. It was a few minutes before Ben could find his voice.

"Rey," he murmured, stroking a hand across the side of her head. 

"My Alpha," she moaned, stretching with a satisfied smile. "You're very good at that, you know?"

The alpha part of him that had begun to recede briefly roared back to life and his entire self preened at her words. 

"What, at fucking?" 

That pulled a bark of laughter out of her. "No! I mean, yes, that was amazing, but I mean the alpha thing. Handling your rut, handling me." She lifted her hands to his chest and set her palms against him, stroking her thumbs in gentle circles. It felt good.

“You’re pretty easy to handle.”

“Others would disagree.”

“Well, others are wrong, then.” Ben leaned in to give her a kiss and she pulled him close, her hands tangling in his hair, and he tried not to moan, but he felt her smile against his lips when he inevitably failed to contain the sound.They kissed and rested like that until Ben's knot loosened enough for him to lift her into the tub; he followed right behind, already missing the feel of her body pressed against his.

* * *

Rey had always enjoyed a luxurious bath, but no bath she’d ever taken could compare to the one she took with Ben on the second day of her heat. They took turns washing each other's bodies, rubbing and massaging every inch of each other’s skin, and allowing no scent gland to go unexplored. At one point Ben got close to her mating gland and she tensed up, expecting the kind of unpleasant irritation she’d felt in the past when alphas would try to touch it, but she was surprised when the negative feeling never came. Instead she welcomed him, and wished he would move even closer. To her shock, she found that she wanted him to _claim_ her - right there, in the tub - and she wondered what it would be like if he did. What if they claimed each other, and she stayed, and lived with him out here in the middle of nowhere? They could garden and hike in the woods with Chewie, cook meals together, watch films and talk about them and she could teach him to code and he could teach her origami. All of this passed through her mind in the split-second after Ben approached her mating gland, and she longed to say something but he sensed her pause and seemed to interpret it as discomfort. He abandoned her gland with a murmured apology, and she wanted to respond, to tell him that no part of her was out of bounds to him; but the small, jaded piece of her that feared rejection wouldn’t let her speak it just yet. So she didn’t say anything at all. 

They relaxed into the cooling water, Rey leaning back against his chest, sheltered by his body. She could see the sky outside the window, dark and clear. The reflection of the interior light was too strong to see the sky well, but Ben promised that he’d take her outside later to look at constellations.

“Do you know Orion?” He asked.

“That’s the one with the belt, right? The three stars?”

“That’s it. If you can find Orion you can find some others, and notable stars, too - Castor and Pollux, and Sirius.”

“Castor and Pollux. Like in the _Hunger Games_?”

“Greek myth. Castor and Pollux were half-brothers; Pollux was immortal, and Castor wasn’t. When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus, his father, to allow him to share his immortality with Castor, so they were made stars in the constellation Gemini.”

Rey thought about it for a moment. “Is that happy or sad? I can’t tell.”

Ben shrugged, causing the tub water to ripple around them. “I don’t know. Depends on how you look at it, I guess.”

A while later, Rey was just beginning to feel that familiar twinge that meant it was getting time to knot again when Ben eased her up.

"Time to get out of the tub, get you back in the bedroom. Knotting you all over the house has been fun, but the bed is much more comfortable."

Rey followed him up and allowed him to towel her off and lift her up like a baby, or a bride.

"How do you know it's time?" She asked as he carried her back up the hallway.

"I can smell it. Same way I can smell when you're awake, and how I can tell how you're feeling. Emotions have aromas, you know."

"And how am I feeling now, Alpha?"

He laid her on the bed, climbed over her, and tucked his nose into her neck, taking a long and noisy sniff that made Rey giggle.

"You're happy, and…" another sniff, "content. But there's something else, too. Hmmm." He took a moment to breathe her in again, coming back with a raised eyebrow. "I think you're horny. I think you want my knot." His face broke into a goofy smile. "Am I close?"

With a grunt and a lunge, Rey pushed Ben onto his back and climbed on top of him. He cried out in surprise but the expression on his face was nothing less than delighted.

"You are an excellent guesser, sweet Alpha. But I don't need your knot quite yet. I want you to show me how to tie you first."

Ben showed her, first on her, and then letting her practice on him. She liked it, the precision of the knots, and found it amazing how a single strand could be manipulated to hold against itself so tightly, but then be so easily undone by a tug in another direction.

Rey successfully bound both of his wrists before the cramps in her belly got to be too much. By that point Ben was as hard as a rock and beginning to growl and bare his teeth, but he lay still for her.

"My good boy, my sweet Alpha. Are you ready to knot me now?"

His response was to pull against the ropes and a whine, from deep in his chest, and that pleased Rey immensely. This almost feral creature was such a contrast to Ben, careful Ben with the suppression suits and the origami and classic movies, and she was terribly fond of both of them.

She lowered her hips and notched the tip of his cock at her entrance before pausing. She felt lightheaded, a bit drunk, but she had something she wanted to try and now seemed like as good a time as any.

"I am going to take my pleasure, and then I am taking your knot. You’ll come when I tell you to, and not a moment before. Do you understand?" Ben nodded vigorously and grunted. "If you do come before I say you can," she continued more quietly, "I won't be mad."

Ben just shook his head again, eyes wild.

He yelled when she took him, clenched his eyes and shuddered against the bonds and shouted wordlessly. She didn't give him any time to acclimate, she wanted to test him; she wanted to see how much her Alpha could endure.

Her first orgasm arrived quickly, and she ground down on him to extend her pleasure for as long as she could. Her Alpha showed no sign of breaking, and as soon as she stopped shaking she started again, one hand on his chest and the other rubbing between her legs. As she rode him she periodically brought her fingers up to her mouth to lick them clean of slick; he watched her always, muscles tense and breath heavy. She enjoyed the taste of their combined flavor, but she savored the desperate look on his face when she sucked her fingers into her mouth even more.

She came a second time with a cry, one cry followed by several smaller ones, like an echo, and there was another echo, too. Her Alpha shouted with her, and at first she feared that he had come along with her, had an orgasm despite her instructions. But she was free to move, he hadn't knotted her yet. He'd apparently shouted in sympathy, and her heart warmed with joy. She wished that she could speak, tell him how proud she was of him, but for the second time that night she didn't have any words. But she had her body, and her voice, and she worked herself on him one more time, only this time her slicked fingers went to her Alpha's mouth instead of her own. He sucked them hard, and bit them, and she thought if she wasn't in heat it might hurt but she _was_ in heat so it just excited her more. And when she came the third time she pinched and twisted his nipples and he yelled first that time. She laughed and her body shuddered with satisfaction when she felt him explode inside her, unable to contain himself a moment longer, his knot pulsing powerfully as it expanded and locked them together. Equally ecstatic and exhausted, she collapsed onto his chest, and reached for the ends of the ropes that bound him. She tugged them to release his wrists, and the last thing she was aware of before she slipped into unconsciousness were her Alpha’s arms wrapping around her, holding her tight; and his voice, soothing in her ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Folks on Twitter were making their Reys, so here is ours: Unbound and Tethered short-haired very-happy-to-finally-have-found-her-Alpha-Ben-Rey.
> 
> Click onward for part two!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two of two!

The next few days - the rest of Rey’s heat and his rut - were sort of a blur to Ben, but a memorable one. They never left each other’s side, apart from occasional individual trips to the bathroom. They slept whenever they needed to, and he carried Rey to the kitchen whenever it was time for a meal. He loved cooking for her; watching her and listening to her while she enjoyed the food he made was deeply rewarding, but the fact that she preferred to take her meals while sitting on his lap - just as she’d been during the first meal they’d shared - utterly delighted him. They never talked about it, but Rey seemed to enjoy feeding him morsels of food with her fingers as much as he enjoyed accepting them from her. It felt good, and natural, and he wanted to do it every day for the rest of his life. 

They knotted _everywhere_. In the bed, of course, with Ben tied up in various permutations that grew more intricate as the days passed and Rey became more confident with the ropes, but also in the kitchen - before, during, and after mealtime; the bathrooms - they’d taken several more baths together and had discovered that shower sex was trickier than either of them had anticipated, but they eventually got the hang of it (and the cleanup was so convenient). They'd even done it on the dining room table, where Ben had gotten a bit carried away and managed to hit his head on (and break) the overhanging light fixture. He cleaned up afterwards, but couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of primal satisfaction by the messes they made, their mixed fluids dousing the furniture and the floors and each other, spreading their scents and marking his entire house. _Their_ house; they were making it theirs.

The afternoon of the second day Ben finally showed Rey his computer, and to her great delight and his mild chagrin, they ended up knotting for almost an hour in his grandfather’s antique desk chair when she'd been trying to show him a bit of coding; after that, he carried a towel with them everywhere, just in case another antique needed protection. Maybe they shouldn't have attempted that after watching hours of Ben's videos of himself earlier in the day. After the computer fiasco they took a long nap, and in the evening - after many requests on her part - he taught her how to make an origami daffodil. It took her a few tries to get it right, and although it frustrated Rey, Ben took pleasure in watching her fold and form the paper; her hands were beautiful and very nimble, and she had the rather adorable habit of poking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth when in deep concentration. Chewie was their constant companion; he spent most of his days sleeping in the living room, but he would come find them when he got hungry, or when he needed to be let outside. 

After the blizzard-like storm on the first night there had been no more snow, and the days grew warm enough to begin to melt it. Ben thought that some of the ground would be visible again by the time Rey’s heat - and his rut - ended. He immediately regretted thinking about this and began to internally panic because he was in no way ready for anything to end yet. The panic didn’t really have time to set in though; there were more important things to focus on. Rey needed him, and he needed her, and those were the only things that mattered. 

They were only interrupted twice, by phone calls. The first was from Rey’s friend Finn, calling to check on her, to see if she’d taken his advice and had gone out to ask the alpha to come in with her. Once he was reassured that she had, and that she was fine (she was, at that moment, very fine indeed - Ben was making certain of it) he let her go, with assurances that she would call him as soon as her heat was finished. The second call was from Poe. Ben wasn’t ready to tell Poe about Rey, not quite yet, but he was sure that Poe could tell something was up; Ben never wanted to talk much on the phone, but he knew he wasn’t usually quite _that_ quick to hang up. It was okay, though - Poe would find out soon enough. Since the snow was melting and it had been over a month since his last delivery, Poe had told him on the phone that he was planning to come out as soon as he possibly could. Ben only hoped his rut and Rey’s heat would both be over before Poe made it out; he didn’t want to think about what might happen if they weren’t; it was too embarrassing to contemplate.

On what turned out to be the morning of the last day they were in the bed in the back bedroom, Ben’s grandparents’ room. When Rey had suggested using that room, he’d initially been a bit weirded out, but she was insistent and she caught him just as her cinnamon scent was spiking. He found it very difficult to say no to her when his alpha was out, and she knew it; and so she used it, and he loved it, and she did too. He’d just knotted Rey from behind and they’d rolled onto their sides, and Rey dragged over the tablet which she’d had the foresight to bring in with them. She was scrolling through classic films to find something for them to watch together while he held her and nosed at her scent gland. Her mating gland was right there too, and its scent was enthralling, but after the way she’d frozen in the bathroom the first night he’d been careful to avoid it; he didn’t want to scare her away, not now. Not after everything they’d done together, and what he wanted to ask her.

“Is it always like this, Rey?” He asked, eyes closed, her sweet scent encompassing everything. “Your heat, I mean?”

She paused, her finger floating over the grid of icons on the grubby screen. 

“I don’t know,” she replied softly. “It’s never been like this before. Maybe this is just how it will always be with you.”

 _How it will always be with you_. A rush of heat filled Ben’s chest. Would it always be with him? He wanted it to, and it sounded as though she did, too. He tried to remember if he’d said anything to let her know she could stay; that he _wanted_ her to stay, more than anything. He'd never felt more alive or more at peace. Ben didn’t want to be alone any more, he wanted to be with her. 

“Stay,” he whispered into her neck, before he even realized he’d said it. “Stay,” he said again, louder, once he had the realization. “Stay with me, please,” he said again, holding her more tightly, begging her. “I want to be yours.” As those last words left his mouth, he was overwhelmed by the truth of what he’d just said. He belonged to her, he knew it, felt it in every cell in his body. She hadn’t moved, or said anything, and he was worried that he’d said too much, put too much out there, but he couldn't let her go.

“Ben,” she finally said, her voice thick with emotion. He hoped it was a good one. “Ben, why did you have to say that when you’re knotted behind me and I can’t see you?” She twisted around the best she could, and he leaned up on his elbow, and he could see then that she was crying, and grinning. “I feel it too,” she said, reaching up to use one of his braids to tug his face down for a kiss. “I never want to leave; I will stay with you.”

“You will?” Ben’s voice sounded strange to himself, wet and higher than usual, and then he realized he was crying, too, but that was okay. 

“I will,” she affirmed, “for as long as you want me.”

“I want you forever.” 

She laughed, her face bright even with the tears. “Yes. I’ve never had forever before, forever would be nice. But,” her expression grew a bit serious, “I have some things to take care of before forever can happen. I want to see Finn, and I’ll need to get some things settled before I can come back. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I do.” He did understand, but a sense of panic attempted to take hold at the thought of her leaving, and he hoped it didn’t show.

“You don’t like it,” she said, her gaze perceptive.

“I don’t have to like it. If it’s what you need, I’ll deal with it.”

That reply satisfied her, and she kissed him again, and as he kissed her back he felt the panic recede and contentment return. When his knot deflated enough to pull out and change their position, he turned her onto her back and immediately pressed back inside and knotted her again; not because their bodies needed it, but because they both wanted it.

* * *

Later that afternoon they were in the living room, golden light shining in the window, wrapped up under Ben’s soft yellow blanket, naked bodies pressed together, legs entwined. Since their conversation earlier where Ben had begged her to stay, begged her to make him hers, Rey had felt almost high. It made her giddy to imagine what it would feel like to claim him, to mark him as her mate; the thought made her glands throb and her body produce even more slick, even though it should be slowing down now that her heat was coming to an end. She'd needed to make a conscious effort to distract herself from these thoughts for fear that she might jump the gun and decide to make them a reality, so she’d suggested they watch a movie.

They were watching the second film in Mothma’s Omega Noir series - the Criterion Collection edition - which they’d both seen so many times they were reciting along with the dialogue. In the scene they were watching the heroine had discovered that the villain had followed her to their childhood home, and she was attempting to reach him by reminding him about the time they’d spent together in the past while they stood together on a beach in the present. 

“We would swim to that island every day. Do you remember? You loved the water.”

Tears trickled down the heroine’s cheek while the villain glowered and refused to meet her eyes.

“We used to lie out on the sand and let the sun dry us and try to guess the names of the birds singing. Do you remember?”

The scene was emotional and fraught, and normally Rey would let herself fall into it, embrace the angst and let the tears fall, but Ben’s voice, deep in her ear, doing a very convincing impression of the villain as he recited his lines, made her giggle. He chuckled, too, and tucked one broad hand under the blanket and gently stroked her abdomen. He’d just begun to drift lower when he paused and frowned; a strange noise that Rey didn’t recognize had suddenly appeared, coming from outside. It was a buzzing sort of noise, that grew quickly louder. It excited Chewie, who jumped up from his spot in front of the fireplace and rushed to the back door, the one in the kitchen. He barked twice and then stopped, as though even doing that much was enough to wear him out.

“It’s Poe,” said Ben, still frowning as he lifted her up so he could stand.

“Your friend with the plane? The delivery?”

“Yeah,” Ben answered, drawing his hand over his hair and pulling it - now in a single braid - over his shoulder. “You ready to meet him?”

Rey was ready to meet Poe, but her heart tightened at the thought of breaking the intimate bubble that had begun to form when Ben had greeted her at his door in his suppression suit, and welcomed her into his home. But it was _their_ home now, and Ben wanted to be hers. Focusing on those those two facts, she was able to muster a grin and answer with complete honesty. 

“I’m ready.” 

“I suppose we’d better go get dressed, then. Are you feeling okay?”

Rey had been feeling steadily less hormonal over the course of the day; if her heat wasn’t over it was certainly close to over. Ben’s rut seemed to be winding down, too; she couldn’t help but feel a tiny pang of loss. 

“I’m feeling really good,” she said, and stood to join Ben, who looked slightly unmoored by Poe’s impending arrival. She reached up, cupped his cheeks in her hands, and drew him down for a kiss before taking his hands in hers and giving them a squeeze. “I want to meet your friend.”

He pulled her into a hug and she could feel him shaking slightly as he chuckled into her hair. “I’m glad you want to meet him, and I want you to meet him too, very much - he’s been my only friend for years. But I also feel…” he paused, still frowning, and sighed. 

“You’re feeling protective? Maybe even a little possessive of me?” Rey ventured to finish his thought.

“Exactly,” he replied, nodding slowly. “I'm worried that… I might hurt him, if he tries to come in the house or get too close to you. And I hate feeling like that, Rey. It’s one of the things that put me off the whole rutting thing for so long, this idea that I might hurt someone, lose control, I just can’t…”

“You are not going to hurt anybody, Ben,” Rey declared, pulling back and cradling his cheeks, gazing into his eyes and willing him to draw strength from her. “Poe is your friend, and isn’t a threat in any way; he’ll be happy for you. I am _yours_ , only yours. Okay? Poe is not a competitor for my affection, or for anything else.” She pushed her thumbs against his chin, lifting it up so he had to look down at her through his eyelashes, and his expression softened. “Do you believe me, Alpha?”

“I believe you, Omega,” he breathed, and she gave him a kiss as a reward for his good behavior. 

Ten minutes later they had taken a quick shower, and then Ben spent another 10 minutes dressing them both in fresh clothing - he’d managed to do a load of laundry at some point during her heat and Rey smiled at the memory of when they'd knotted against the washing machine as they waited for the dryer to finish. The clothes were the same ones she’d been wearing when she'd been kicked out of the car up the road, when she’d received the first letter from Ben, not even a week before. Part of her hated putting clothes back on, a physical reminder that it was time to return to ‘real life’. 

This wasn’t an issue she hadn’t dealt with in previous heats, another sign that this heat - and the person she’d spent it with - was different, and very special. Rey could tell Ben wasn’t exactly happy about it either; he’d taken his time dressing them, pausing frequently to rub each article of her clothing against the scent glands at his neck before putting them on her. He did the same with his own clothes, making sure to coat them in her scent before pulling them on; she wasn’t entirely sure if he realized he was doing it, but seeing him do this made her smile - she had to admit it soothed and satisfied her omega self. Once they were dressed Rey followed Ben out of his bedroom, he hurried through the house and into the kitchen, and they found Poe outside in the yard, throwing a stick for the dog, the small plane visible in the field beyond.

Poe was a pleasant-looking man, a bit older and several inches shorter than Ben, with thick dark hair - grey around the temples - and brown eyes that twinkled with amusement as they walked out to join him.

“Hey, Ben,” he called. “Hey,” and he waved at Rey, a knowing grin growing on his lips. “I knew as soon as I went inside that something was up,” Poe said, walking towards them. “Stinks in there. Sorry.” This last word was addressed to Rey, who shrugged.

“It does,” she acknowledged, and he threw back his head and laughed. Rey knew exactly what Poe was doing; he was submitting to Ben’s new status without making a big deal about it. It was a subtle move for a beta; Rey decided then and there that she liked Poe. 

Ben looked decidedly less amused - he looked downright embarrassed - so Rey took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s all right, Alpha,” she whispered, and his answering smile was sunlight peeking through a raincloud.

Ben and Rey helped Poe carry the month’s boxes inside - cans and boxes and frozen food packed in dry ice, along with fresh produce and baking supplies and paper supplies and dog food. Poe refused to spend more than a few seconds inside, complaining quietly about the smell every time - bringing a smile to Rey’s lips every time - so when they were done unpacking and Poe had thoroughly worn Chewie out with games of fetch, they sat together on the front porch, looking out to the trees on the other side of the garden and sipping from bottles of stout from a brewery in Billings that Poe had brought in the delivery. Rey sat on the deck and Ben sat in a chair behind her, keeping one hand on her head and the other on his bottle of stout. Every once in a while he would bend down to press his nose against her scent gland, and she would do the same. When they did this Poe would politely look out to the trees or the valley or whisper to Chewie, allowing them their privacy. Rey told Poe her story, how she'd got stuck in the barn in the snowstorm and Ben had rescued her, and Poe nodded and laughed at the appropriate parts, and told her in seriousness how lucky she was to have run into Ben.

As the afternoon slipped into the evening, Poe started making noises about leaving.

“I’d normally stay the night, you know,” he said, finishing off his bottle, “but I’m sorry, the bouquet in the house is just too much for me right now, and I’d rather not sleep in the plane.”

“There’s a heater in the barn, in the office there, and the bed isn’t too bad,” Rey offered helpfully, but Poe shook his head.

“Thanks, but I’m not going to take you up on that. I usually stay to keep Ben company,” he continued, knocking his empty bottle against his friend’s shoe, “but since you’re here it feels less than necessary.”

He stood, but Ben’s quiet, low voice interrupted. “Stay, please, in the barn if you can,” Ben said, “and take Rey with you when you leave tomorrow.” Rey looked up at him and the tears in his eyes made her heart hurt, but she knew he was right.

“What?” Poe exclaimed, and looked between them, confused.

“I’m coming back,” Rey insisted, “but this, meeting Ben, was a surprise. I have things to take care of, and there are people I need to see. If you fly me out tomorrow, I’ll be back in a month for you to bring me back here. Okay?” She looked to Ben again, who was wiping tears off his face. “Okay?”

“Not really,” he replied with a laugh, “but okay.”

Poe sat back down, and Ben went inside and came back a bit later with more stout and a tray bearing three bowls of hot beef stew. They ate together in the gathering darkness, Rey on the ground leaning against Ben’s legs. They talked and laughed, and when it was time Poe set off for the barn, Chewie lumbering after him, and Rey and Ben went back inside. They changed the sheets on Ben’s bed, and quickly undressed and lay together in the dark.

“I like this,” she whispered sleepily against his chest.

“This, which this?” He asked, running his fingers through her hair, scratching his fingernails gently against her scalp with every pass.

“Being with you. Not being in heat, and still being with you; wanting to be with you. ”

“I knew it before you went into heat. When we were talking in the house. The movie, and everything.”

“I knew it too,” she answered, stroking his cheek. “And I’ll come back soon.”

“You will.” He pushed her onto her back, and nestled between her legs. “You’ll call me every night to tell me how you’re doing.”

“Tell you how much I miss you.”

“That too.” He nuzzled against her neck, pressed a kiss against her scent gland, and sighed as he pressed into her for the last time that day. They made love, very gently, and then slept.

They woke the next morning and slowly got dressed, repeating the process from the day before, scenting each other one last time before Ben walked Rey out in the early morning haze to meet Poe at the plane. They kissed as Ben helped her in and closed the door, and then he retreated to let them take off. She pressed her face against the window, headphones that Poe had put on her doing their best to cancel the noise of the engines, and she wept as she waved goodbye to Ben, who knelt on the ground with Chewie, tears running freely down his own cheeks as he waved back. They were saying goodbye, but only for a while. She would be back, and they would be together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the Epilogue left to go!
> 
> If you've enjoyed the story so far please let us know - comments and kudos are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Updated to add this commission from Persimonne!


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Sorry to make you wait! Hope it was worth it.
> 
> Thanks again to JuniorDreamer for providing such a wonderful and productive prompt! We've loved writing this story for you.
> 
> Thank you Sunbug for the beautiful moodboard!
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

The following four weeks were difficult for Ben, as February trudged slowly towards March. The snowy weather eased up and the first scents of spring had begun to peek through the bleakness of the freeze, which made it a bit easier for him but not painless. He spent a lot of time outside, planning the spring garden, walking with Chewie through the woods, preparing the house for its new resident - Rey, Ben’s Omega. His. And he was her Alpha. It still amazed him, and he couldn’t imagine ever not being amazed by it.

They spoke on the phone every night, for an hour or more. They told each other about their days, talked about movies, and Rey told him what she wanted to do when she got back to the homestead - sometimes in great detail, the specifics of which made his eyes water and his knot swell with longing. Ben made it clear to her how her words affected him, and she did likewise. Every time they spoke like this he remembered how it felt to be locked inside her as she clenched and pulsed around him and his mating gland would burn and throb in response, demanding to be touched. And he would touch it and orgasm again imagining Rey’s teeth at his neck. 

He also regularly talked with Finn - at first simply to ease the mind of Rey’s closest friend, but it turned out they had similar senses of humor and genuinely enjoyed each others company; that, in addition to their mutual regard for Rey, turned them into friends before the month was up. He hoped they would be able to meet soon; for the first time in a long time, Ben found himself looking forward to having the chance to meet another human being in person. 

He spent one afternoon in the basement, scouring through his grandmother’s belongings, boxed away and forgotten since before he’d moved into the house. He came back upstairs, having found what he was looking for, and spent the next few hours doing arts and crafts; he knew exactly what he wanted this project to look like and was pleased with the finished product, which he tucked away for later. Ben also spent his time making videos to show Rey when she returned, incorporating a few of the things she’d seemed to enjoy most, and some things he hoped to try with her. He also kept a diary with all of his thoughts; about her, about himself, about his hopes for their future. He filled the diary with drawings to go along with his thoughts; mostly of her but also the house and its surroundings. They weren’t very good drawings in his opinion, but he’d done his best and expected that she would love them anyway, because they were his. 

_Love_. He loved her. He couldn't remember if he’d actually said that to her or not, or if she’d said it to him. But he wanted to say it to her, now that he’d had the thought, though he hesitated to say it over the phone because he wasn’t sure if it was something to make a big deal of at all. He loved her; and he knew that she loved him - she didn’t have to say it. But he still wanted to tell her. As the days passed he considered the best way to go about it, but still hadn’t come to a decision by the time the end of the month finally arrived and it was time for her to arrive with Poe and the monthly delivery.

Rey had called just before the plane left Billings, her voice was bright and full of excitement even through the dim satellite connection and Ben felt himself start to vibrate with anticipation. He went outside to wait, taking in deep breaths of the chilly, damp air to center himself - it had rained overnight and the water had seeped into the ground, heightening the organic dark scent of the soil and the seeds already awakening beneath the surface. Thirty minutes later the familiar buzz of Poe’s plane shook the air, and Ben was running towards it before he even realized what he was doing. He could smell her, before the plane touched the ground, he was certain; whether this was true, or his memory tricking him now that she was here again, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t really care. He’d cleaned the house the day before - all but his own bedroom, which was now shut tight to keep the scent enclosed - and her unique, pure scent was nearly gone now, mostly combined with his own. 

When the plane’s passenger door opened and she alighted, then he _could_ smell her, her magnolia and honey sweetness, but her aroma was underlaid with a layer of bitterness, like bile at the back of his throat; it reminded him of how she’d smelled when he first became aware of her in the barn - distressed and anxious before her heat. Tears sprang to his eyes and his pace quickened, his chest tight with the need to soothe his Omega. The bitter scent immediately dissipated as soon as she laid eyes on him, and as she ran towards him and jumped into his arms, he was overwhelmed with an enormous burst of honey and flowers and everything else that could only be described as _**Rey** _and _**Home**_. 

* * *

Thanks to an onslaught of neverending rainstorms the Greyhound from Seattle to Billings had taken forever, and Rey’d spent the entire journey consumed by thoughts of claiming Ben; she’d had to remove herself to the tiny, cramped restroom a few times to take care of herself. Sure, she’d thought about this before, lots of times, but the moment might finally be upon them; she hoped it was upon them. 

Throughout her entire adult life as a female omega, Rey had always found the idea of being claimed by an alpha and living out the rest of her life as some kind of subservient broodmare to be absolutely horrifying. Though it was what society expected of her, being stuck to an alpha and churning out his offspring was the very last thing she wanted for her future; and with laws that forbade permanent sterilization for unmated omegas, she’d done everything in her power to prevent it from happening. 

But an omega claiming an alpha first was almost unheard of, and she’d never bothered to think about what it might be like to claim someone - she’d only feared and avoided being claimed. But then she’d met Ben and he’d asked her, had begged her to stay with him, told her he wanted to be hers, and Rey knew that he’d meant it with all of his being; she’d been able to think of little else since they’d parted. 

She often imagined what it would feel like to sink her teeth into his mating gland after he’d given her his knot - what he would taste like; how his scent might change; the sounds he might make as she claimed him and marked him as her mate for the rest of their lives. She would think about that night together in the bath and her body would clench at the memory of feeling of Ben’s lips near her own mating gland; she’d longed for him to claim her in that moment, and she longed for it now. But she wanted to claim him _first_. 

The long trip was painful, and waiting for Poe to be ready to take off once she’d finally reached Billings was excruciating, and even though she’d spoken to him the night before, just before she and Finn had left his apartment in Vancouver to drive down to Seattle, hearing Ben’s voice on the phone before their flight had been calming (though very stimulating at the same time - she hoped she would be able to restrain herself at least a little bit in front of Poe after they landed). When she finally saw him through the hazy window of the airplane as they pulled around to land, standing by the house with Chewie, who was barking excitedly, Rey felt all the anxiety and discomfort from the long journey start to melt away. Thoughts of _**MINE** _rang through her as they drew closer to where Ben was waiting.The plane finally stopped, and as soon as Poe gave her the okay to disembark she jumped out and ran, dropping the bag she was carrying, right past Chewie (who was excited to see her for his own reasons), and leaped onto him - her man, her Alpha, _all_ _hers_ \- wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. She wiped her tears against his neck, and pressed her lips against his scent glands, rich with the aroma of trees and water.

“Take me inside,” she growled in his ear, “I want to claim you now.” 

Ben turned around and hurried to the house without a word, Poe’s laughter echoing behind them.

He got them into the house and into his - no, _their_ bedroom, and tossed Rey on the bed, shutting the door tightly behind them. He was a vision; his hair was braided tidily down his back, his clean blue jeans (that might even have been pressed) clung to his thick thighs, and his honey-brown eyes were staring right at her. Perfect. 

“You look good,” he said, staring at her as she pulled her new black jeans down her hips.

“So do you,” she answered. “I like your shirt.”

He looked down at the flannel shirt he was in the process of unbuttoning and blushed slightly; it was the very basic red plaid shirt he’d masturbated into the month before. The same shirt that had propelled her into heat, into his arms, and into his bedroom. It would always be her favorite shirt.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You’re welcome. Now get naked.”

“I love you,” he said instead, not moving, and she paused disrobing to gaze at him, a smile pressing at the corners of her mouth as her heart momentarily stopped in her chest. 

Until this moment, only one other person had ever said these words to Rey. But that was Finn, and he didn’t mean it the way that Ben did.

“Say it again,” she ordered, as a flood of fresh slick dripped into her panties.

“I love you, Rey,” he repeated, “I love you.”

She pushed her jeans and soaked underwear down her legs and kicked them off. Ben watched her do it, his nostrils flaring when she let her knees fall apart. Could he smell her cunt, how badly she wanted him, how she’d missed him, how his words affected her? She expected he could.

“Keep saying it, don’t stop saying it." _Never stop saying it_ , she thought. "Say it again, and fuck me,” Rey grinned, and Ben did it, like the good alpha he was.

He told her he loved her while he undressed himself, and while he refamiliarized his mouth with her body. He had to stop speaking when he went down on her, his tongue being too occupied licking her folds and suckling her clit, but along with his fingertips, amazing inside her, his movements spoke it loudly enough. He brought her to orgasm twice before he started speaking again, whispering _I love you_ as he kissed his way up her body until they were face to face. He pressed at her entrance, but she stopped him before he could penetrate her.

“Ben, just give me a moment, please. I missed you,” she murmured, once she’d caught her breath and dried the tears off her face. “And I love you, too.”

“I know,” he replied, examining her eyes as though he could see straight into her soul. “And I missed you too,” he said as he leaned in to kiss her, moisture gathering in the corners of his eyes, his lips swollen and pink. She reached up to cup his face as his lips met hers, the feel and taste of them warm and familiar, and she craved more. As she deepened the kiss, pressed her tongue between his lips and Ben lifted his to meet hers, she could taste herself, the savory saltiness of her cunt that he’d been kissing only moments before, combined with his own unique flavor; she pushed her tongue further into his mouth to gather as much of it as she could. It reminded her of how much she’s missed him, missed kissing him, missed being with him - missed _them_. 

She reached around his neck, settling the tips of her fingers alongside his mating gland, hot to the touch. It was red and inflamed during his rut, just as hers had been during her heat, although if it was like hers it had probably calmed down while they’d been apart. She wanted it, wanted to see it, wanted to bite it, to make it her own. Make him hers. As her fingers danced on his neck - around, but not not quite touching his gland - Ben briefly tensed and moaned into her mouth, and then his body relaxed, all his muscles loosening together, and his moan relaxed, too; it sounded to her almost as a cat purring. 

“I want to claim you,” she said, feeling bold. “If I’m going to stay, I need to claim you as my own.”

Ben gave a small shudder at her words and drew back, keeping his eyes on hers as he sat up and leaned against the headboard. He pulled her to him, sitting her sideways onto his lap, and then reached over and into the drawer of the bedside table. His hand came out holding an object, a braided rope bedecked with origami roses and daffodils, and he handed it to her. She took it, confused but smiling, and turned it over in her hands.

“Thank you,” she said, gifting him a small, still confused smile. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a box,” he explained, pointing to where the two pieces of the box fit together. “Open it.”

She opened it, and gasped in shock when she saw the item within.

“You can claim me,” he said, arm holding her tight around her middle. “I want you to claim me, and I want to claim you, too. And I know it might seem old fashioned, but I also want to marry you.” Gingerly, Rey reached into the box and lifted out the ring. It was gold, with a large, square-cut diamond surrounded by rows of tiny emeralds. She stared at the ring, and then at him, completely overwhelmed with emotion. He wanted her, he loved her, not only enough to let her claim him but enough to marry her, to give her what appeared to be a very old and likely very expensive ring. She had no idea what to say, and as the seconds passed Ben’s expression fell, and he started to babble. “Not _now_ , but someday, I don’t mean to…”

“Yes,” she interrupted him, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you, Ben. Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting it.” Rey’s gaze flitted between his face and the ring as he took it from her fingers and slipped it onto her outstretched finger. 

“It was my Grandma Breha’s engagement ring, and there’s a wedding band to match,” he said as she turned it this way and that to admire the way the light hit the stone. 

“It’s a little loose, but it’s perfect. I love it.” 

Face beaming with pride, Ben drew her hand to his lips and kissed her ring finger. “Poe could take it back with him tomorrow to get it resized, if you’d like.”

She smiled at him, full of joy, her free hand resting on his chest. “I’ll think about it. But first,” she continued, leaning forward to press a kiss to his lips, “we were discussing a certain claiming.”

* * *

Ben swallowed and tried to find his voice. “Yes. I want you to claim me. Make me yours, Rey. Mate me.” 

Her gaze intensified again and she shifted to straddle his lap. He’d gone a bit soft during the proposal, but when she’d said _YES_ his cock had sprung back to life. Her cunt was warm and wet as she rubbed against him, and in no time he was almost painfully hard. Even though it took only seconds, it felt like an eternity until she took him inside her again, exactly where he needed to be. They sat still, her arms draped around his shoulders, sharing breath and savoring the moment, their foreheads pressed together. To Ben it felt as though it was a moment out of time - just them, joined together, the only thing in the world. 

She murmured quietly as she slowly began to move, sweet words of love and praise, and he drank it in like a thirsty man at a fountain. It didn’t take long before she was riding him in earnest, her soft words turning into moans of pleasure. He could feel her walls starting to flutter and he knew she was getting close to orgasm, and he was too. She seemed to sense it, because she pushed his head down towards her breasts and pulled his braid aside to expose his throbbing mating gland, and he was more than happy to follow her lead. From there he could really smell her; the scent of her cunt, the hair in her armpits, the soft skin under her breasts. He concentrated on her aroma, on the feel of her hands gripping his shoulders, bracing herself for what she was about to do, and then there it was: her mouth on his mating gland, her tongue and then her teeth; at first licking, then scraping, and finally the _bite_ , her teeth sharp and sure as they pierced his skin while her her cunt gripped him tightly. It felt to Ben like falling and being held up all at once, and he was sure that he cried out, and that she cried too. He held her tightly, as tightly as he could, and he was afraid he was hurting her but all he could sense from her was pleasure. And he could _sense_ her, now… this was different, not just based on her scent but something else, something of hers that her bite had made a part of _him_. He’d spent years trying to avoid being controlled by biology - be it his own or that of those around him. But in that moment, when he felt a part of the woman he’d _chosen_ to love, _chosen_ to be claimed by - his Rey, his Omega, who he wanted and needed more than anything - take root somewhere inside him and deepen the already overwhelming connection they shared, he felt like biology had given them a gift. Her arms around him loosened, and he was able to lift his head up again, and as he did, he took the opportunity to kiss her everywhere he could reach; her breasts, up to her collarbone, her neck - stopping to lick and kiss and rub his face into her scent glands - and finally up to her mouth, her sweet mouth which was moist with tears. 

“Thank you,” Ben murmured, wiping the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “I love you. I love you forever.”

“You’re welcome.” She laughed softly as she relaxed into his chest. And I love you. I need you to mate me now, Ben. But your knot… I don’t think…”

Ben knew what she meant. His knot, which had expanded at the moment of his orgasm, right when she bit his gland, was now so swollen it was almost painful for him, even worse than it had been when he’d been in rut; it was certainly the largest knot he’d ever experienced and he was frankly flabbergasted by the volume of cum it was producing. 

“As soon as it deflates enough, I will, okay?”

She nodded, and seemed content to take the opportunity to kiss him as much as she could, everywhere she could reach, and every now and then he could feel her orgasm around his knot. As she kissed him she removed the band from the end of his braid, and ran her fingers through the plait, starting at the end and slowly working her way up as the locks of hair slowly divided themselves and fell apart. By the time enough time had passed for Ben’s knot to deflate his hair was loose; wild and tumbling over his shoulders and down his back. He repositioned them so that Rey was on her tummy with her legs spread wide, and he knelt behind her. He loved the view of her body spread out before him, her mating gland bright pink and pronounced on the back of her neck, head tucked under to present it to him. As he leaned over her, his hair brushed against her back, and he enjoyed watching how she shivered in response.

It was a bit like being in a rut - he had no refractory period, was ready to go again as soon as his knot was down - but it was unlike rut in that he felt fully in control. There was no alpha here, there was only Ben. Ben was going to claim Rey, and they were going to be mated forever. 

Ben lifted her hips, just enough for comfort, and slipped his cock into her, then laid down over her body, face at her neck. She felt incredible around him, under him, and she smelled even more glorious now that she’d mated him; sweet and heady, a veritable garden of aroma. He took his time, feeling her and sensing her, until eventually her voice came, teasing, slightly muffled from the pillow.

“Ben, Alpha, I’m ready. What’s taking you so long?”

She called him _Alpha_ , and that’s what did it, more than anything else. She was Rey, but she was his Omega, and he was her Alpha and he had one job - to give her whatever she needed. He let instinct take over and he thrust his cock into her, as deeply as he could, and pressed a kiss to her mating gland, sweet and exquisite, and then he bit. His tongue was met by a splash of warm saltiness - blood, no doubt - but it was joined with a luscious fruitiness that had him groaning, and his knot expanding once again. Rey was crying, he could hear her, could smell her tears; she wept and shuddered beneath him, her orgasm causing her muscles to pulse around his cock, pulling his own orgasm along with her. And as he came into her it was there again, that _sense_ of her he'd experienced after she bit him - her pleasure, her joy, her delight in what was happening - but even deeper, stronger and brighter than it had been before. He struggled to find words, but before he could wade through his muddy thoughts and come up with something coherent Rey spoke; and when she did, he thought perhaps she could read his mind. 

“We’re bound,” she murmured into the pillow, just loud enough that he could hear her, but then she repeated it again, through a groan as her muscles clenched around him in orgasm once more, “we’re bound together, you and I.”

“I love you,” he whispered into her neck. “I love you so much.”

She hummed, the shadow of a laugh, and replied, “I know.”

Nothing else needed to be said.

Ben rolled them over, onto their sides, and held Rey close, licking and kissing all of her glands, the taste and the scent of her more intoxicating than ever. It made him wonder what her cunt would taste like to him now, and he had another orgasm at the mere thought of his tongue on her folds, her juices on his chin, and her body responded with another orgasm of its own as she felt his pleasure coursing through her. Once she’d stopped shaking she leaned back into his hold and reached up and around his neck, gently stroking his glands and occasionally running her fingers through his hair as they pulsed together; his wavy hair had never felt softer. Thoughts and feelings of _home_ and _mine_ and _forever_ repeated in Ben’s mind, and he wasn't sure whether they came from himself, or Rey, or maybe somehow both of them at the same time; but whatever their source, nothing had ever felt more right and real and true. After a while they noticed that they were breathing in sync, and they wondered if it was a coincidence or one more sign of their bond cementing into place, but neither of them cared. He was hers and she was his and they wanted _everything_ that came with it.

Ben knew they’d have to get up eventually; Chewie would need to be fed, and Poe was there, after all. But he trusted that Poe was aware of what was going on, at least the basics, and that he’d give them their time alone. They should call Finn to let him know that Rey had arrived safely, and that all was well; Ben knew Finn would be very pleased to hear from the both of them. He supposed he ought to call his parents, too; it was well past time for that reunion, too. But all of that could wait, at least for now. 

They lay together for hours as they explored their new bond. Every sense was heightened - it was as though they’d spent their lives squinting, attempting to see through a window they hadn’t known was dirty only to find it was very suddenly clean and clear. Rey recalled a verse from the Bible, one of the few that she remembered from a long-abandoned attempt to find religion, but instead of the proper reading her brain provided a new one: ‘ _For then we saw through a glass, darkly, but now we are face to face; now we know each other, and we are one_.’ She chuckled to herself, and behind her, Ben chuckled too. 

The sunlight shining in the window slowly shifted across the room as the mid-day sun moved over the house, and once it faded Rey did, too. She was already half asleep, her left hand holding the rope-covered box and her right hand toying with the ring. Ben took the box, unwrapped the rope, and wove it between their fingers, Rey’s hand on top of his, before lifting their bound hands and pressing her ring against his lips. The stone was warm, just like her. She fell asleep soon after, and Ben tried to sleep, too, but his newly heightened senses were too stimulated to allow it. So he held her, and felt her, and that was enough. They were united now, unbound from their past fears but tethered together into the future - a future that both Rey and Ben were finally excited for, and which they would embrace as one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note from the intentionally mostly invisible co-author who has developed a permanent Pavlovian crying/goosebumps response to Mumford & Sons 'I Will Wait' because of this fic:
> 
> Hi, I'm Lindsey, and you haven't really heard from me before now because I strongly prefer to stay backstage and cheer for my friends as they shine front and center. But since this is the last chapter of our story, I figure it's now or never to introduce myself and have the chance to thank each and every one of the wonderful and supportive and adventurous and generous readers who decided to join Rey, Ben, Chewie, Poe, QueenOfCarrotFlowers, and me on the _Unbound & Tethered_ journey and left us so many kind and enthusiastic comments. 
> 
> Though I have written in the past and intend to do more in the future, my first love in the world of fanfic is beta reading and editing. As a Reylo beta (hehe) reader/editor/cheerleader/story doula, my number 1 all-time dream job was a soft, tender ABO, but I figured it would stay a dream job because no one I beta for is into it. Then my friend QueenOfCarrotFlowers/@FlowersOfCarrot (who dislikes ABO, lol) decided she wanted to write an ABO gift fic for the wonderful juniordreamer and asked me to help her and I found myself getting to live the dream. Being named as an official co-author was a huge surprise and I'm still flabbergasted every time I see my dorky screen name attached to this story.
> 
> Juniordreamer, I am so thrilled to have been able to participate in making this story for you, and I hope this epilogue was worth the wait!
> 
> Thank you QueenOfCarrotFlowers, for being so generous and patient and kind and inviting me to collaborate on the sweetest, softest, kinkiest, most subversive, and altogether original ABO story I've ever come across in the Reylo fandom. It's been a DREAM COME TRUE -- and even better because I got to do it with you. 💕
> 
> And about all of those kind and enthusiastic comments... Thank you all again, and please know that I intend to reply to all of them, but it'll probably take a while - because me and speed are hardly the perfect match that Rey and Ben are. 😉

**Author's Note:**

> I'm Dot, and I claimed JuniorDreamer's prompt because I'm a fan of hers and I wanted to make something nice for her. It wasn't until after I claimed it that it hit me: _I would have to write ABO_. I barely read ABO and the thought of writing it was overwhelming, until my friend Lindsey reminded me that she loves it! And she was willing to beta and advise! Of course she ended up doing so much more - a lot of the language (and many of the ideas, too) in the last two chapters is hers; this was a real collaboration and the story wouldn't be nearly a rich and engaging without her as the co-author. She's also like... the best, so supportive and smart and _challenging_. If Lindsey ever offers to beta for you jump at the chance; I don't think I can function without her any more. 
> 
> I've learned a lot about ABO, and co-writing, and I want to thank JuniorDreamer again for the prompt and giving us the opportunity to write this story.
> 
> One final note: one thing that I wanted to do with this was overturn some tropes. I definitely headcanon Ben as being submissive to Rey, and in the ABO stories I've read where Ben is the Alpha he's always been aggressive about it. I wanted to see if I could construct a version of Ben who was both believably Alpha and believably submissive to Omega Rey, and I wanted that to be overt (hence his existing fantasies and the inclusion of BDSM... Plus I just like BDSM LOL). And likewise with Rey of course; my headcanon for her is that she submits to no one, not even her Alpha Ben. They both soften their stances of course, and it felt good to write them this way. I hope you found it believable and satisfying, too.
> 
> While I'm here, I'm going to do some shameless self-promotion. There's no guarantee that if you like this you'll like anything else I've written, but if you're curious, I wrote another Plaidam Paramour story (for VeriLee), it's called [Take This Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20369302) and it features an older sheep farmer Rey with a younger intern Ben (but their age difference and the fact he works for her isn't their biggest hurdle). If you prefer canonverse, check out [In tempore](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1246295), a three-story series featuring a time-traveling Ben (based on _The Time Traveler's Wife_ ). Finally, I'm almost done with a Finnreylo Crimson Peak AU (it's dark, check the tags) - Lindsey's also my beta and #1 encourager on this one: [Le fin du fin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17503694/chapters/41230316). I write a lot, lots of different genres and some different pairings - Reylo, Finnlo, and Finnreylo - so take a look at my works list if you're curious.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading our little story, be sure to leave a kudos and a comment to let us know what you think!
> 
> I'm leofgyth on Tumblr, leoba on Pillowfort, and @FlowersOfCarrot on Twitter, come say hi! I also have a [CuriousCat](http://curiouscat.me/FlowersOfCarrot/) connected to my Twitter account, if you want to ask something anonymously.
> 
> A final little thank you to folks in the RFFA chat for suggesting that I look to music when I was having trouble coming up with a title, and to flypaper_brain for pointing me to Mumford and Sons _I Will Wait_ which is the perfect musical accompaniment to this little story. The line "a tethered mind free from the lies" basically describes both Ben and Rey in this story.


End file.
